Cracking comedy saves curious confection

When Harry Met Sally, Opera House, Manchester

IT must have seemed a very good idea. Take Nora Ephron’s famous and much-loved Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan film and turn it, restaurant scene and all, into a stage play.

The problem is that where the movie had many scenes set in different locations, good character development and a more realistic passage of time, the stage play does not.

Both actors are clearly in their youthful 20s, so to see them play 40-year-olds without changing at all — even their style of clothes — is a little disconcerting.

What adapter Marcy Kahan leaves us from the film instead is a collection of linear episodes in the two-decade friendship of Harry (”Corrie’s” former Jamie Baldwin, Rupert Hill) and Sally (ex-”Hollyoaks” actress Sarah Jayne Dunn).

And yes, one of those scenes is the landmark restaurant scene: for one thing it’s about the only part of the film everyone remembers, so to leave it out would have been ridiculous.

As it is, it comes (if you will pardon the expression) and goes amusingly but rather quickly, the audience (mainly of groups of women) mouthing along with the pay-off line.

Add to this some plain, rather flimsy sets, fussily-dressed and thus demanding several prop changes between scenes, and some curious decisions by director Michael Gyngell — notably to leave the stage empty at the end of the final scene — and it might seem like this touring production doesn’t have very much going for it.

In fact it has rather a lot going for it, most notably some cracking comedy lines which, if not delivered with Billy Crystal’s extraordinary wit, timing and personality, are at least given a strong line by Hill, who manages to make us laugh quite a bit, most of the time.

Sarah Jayne Dunn doesn’t have quite such an easy ride, her character remaining a rather nondescript, girlie individual, not helped by the actress’s glamorously long blonde hair and good looks.

Meg Ryan, you may recall, was chosen for the role because at the time she was the sweetheart of the movies, cute but not overtly glamorous. You would defy Hill’s character — portrayed as a serial womaniser — to keep his hands to himself for more than five minutes with this Sally.