Bennett offering not one to enjoy

ALAN BENNETT can generally do no wrong, but he certainly managed it with this prophetic but unnerving 1980s comedy.

He is an unquestioned genius at teasing out of common speech the sort of gems that gave Norman Evans and Sandy Powell their long careers: offhand comments that sum up entire personalities in a single line.

But ‘Enjoy’ was a flop. Harking back to a time when the nostalgia industry was just starting, it was absurdist when expectations were of a straightforward comedy.

And it was also far too long. This production is cut but still runs to 2hr 35min.

‘Enjoy’ isn’t dull, just relentless. Predicting as it does the wholesale repackaging of real life as museum material and the destruction of ways of life and communities rather than their gradual change by common consent, is is part laugh-fest, part social documentary and part rather odd dream.

Mam and Dad (the fabulous Alison Steadman and the equally strong but not quite perfect David Troughton), live in Leeds’ last back-to-back street.

He can’t wait to move to a new flat, she is happy and, unfortunately, losing her memory.

They are convinced their daughter is a personal servant when, in fact, she provides rather more personal services, and their son disappeared long ago for a new life in London.

A social observation team silently watches the last members of this dwindling community with its know-it-all neighbours and young yobs, and wants to take the street down brick by brick to rebuild it as a nostalgia park, its inhabitants the living exhibits.

So as a set of ideas, ‘Enjoy’ is prescient and remarkable. It is as a play that it is a slightly disappointing experience.

The dialogue is relentless. There are long stretches where characters sit around and speak comic lines that are a great collection of one-liners, but get surprisingly wearing. And there’s an admittedly hilarious death scene in the second half that is from an entirely different play.

It is this disjointed collection of ideas, jokes and offbeat plot that ultimately makes ‘Enjoy’ a little tedious.

It is not easy being hilarious and tedious, but that is presumably what happens when a genius bombs.