Headlong rush into summer

TOO CLEVER BY HALF, Royal Exchange, Manchester
The Exchange heads into the summer break with something light and frothy — not that you might pick that up from hearing that this play is Russian and was written in 1868 by a chap reliably believed to be a great promoter of theatre realism.

Tell that to Told By An Idiot, the physical theatre company responsible for this often hilarious, occasionally misfiring zaniness about a social-climbing Muscovite with the gift of the gab and an acid-dipped pen.

The comedy is brought into the 1960s (not that you would notice in anything but costume), when climbing the social ladder was almost as important as in Tsarist Russia, and impoverished Glaumov (Dyfan Dwyfor) is keen to push his way into society any way he can. He writes a scandalous diary, inveigles himself into the good books of rich relations and impresses their friends, wins the heart of his cousin’s wife and finally drops her for a beautiful young girl with a fortune — until coming a cropper.

But throw away any knowledge of the original being a satire on middle-class values in late 19th century Russia. Told Like an Idiot — responsible for the Exchange’s production of Kaufman and Hart’s “You Can’t Take it With You” a couple of years ago — turns the play into a three-ring circus of theatre tricks, from over-the-top physical comedy to trapeze, pyrotechnics, a giant bear and help from an audience member.

It works — eventually — but the zaniness quotient is rather high for the first 40 minutes to no great purpose; the whole thing takes a while to settle into a rhythm we can follow without wondering what’s happening and why. It all comes together towards the end of act one but from then on the show is good, silly fun; some of it a little too much, but most about right. Don’t try to make sense of it and you’ll love it.

Performances are more difficult to judge, since it’s more about keeping up and moving quickly than characters, but Dwyfor is energetic as Glaumov, Hayley Carmichael occasionally quite touching as the cousin’s wife and Nick Haveron generally hilarious as an old duffer whose sight might be failing, but who can still dance like Michael Jackson...