Clues to this flop are in the title...

UNORIGINAL SIN, Lyceum, Oldham

WITH so many good plays around, why do small companies like the Lyceum choose bad ones like this?

Among the thousands of works in the catalogues, a big selection are “supermarket” plays: not terribly original, not very funny or well written. This is one of them.

Author David Tristram apparently likes to write sexy, slightly outrageous comedies. Unfortunately he’s not very good at it.

The set up is typically farcical, but without an element of reality to make it funny.

When did you last hear of a Catholic priest raising a foundling left on his doorstep; a lecherous middle-aged man selling his £300,000 luxury cottage for a tenner to spite his wife’s divorce settlement, a 24-year-old virgin throwing herself at said lecher because, well, because he’s the only man she could, or the divorcing couple betting each can seduce a younger partner first?

These slightly sordid elements aren’t even spelled out in a strong storyline; it is well into the second act before we find out the priest’s daughter has been raised a “good” girl and the drunken bore of a central character — never without a glass of whisky in hand — has made his fortune writing trashy romantic novels and is thus the opposite of the person he seems to be.

This under-egged play has likewise produced a pretty underwhelming result. Director Melvyn Bates tries hard but the play simply doesn’t work: no matter how much energy you put into it, the story goes nowhere and isn’t funny — well, except perhaps when Mike Russell is doing his violence-inclined Irish priest act: not the least bit Irish, but still pretty funny.

Part of the problem is the leading man, Stephen Maxfield: usually a very reliable comedy actor, he is rather too old to play the supposedly 38-year-old lecher — especially opposite the fairly youthful and inexperienced Carrie Ann Holden as 24-year-old Amy. There is little chemistry between them — apart from alcohol — and the relationship never rings even slightly true.

Overplaying from Rachael Mellor as the outgoing wife, and underplaying from Roger Hartmann as the solicitor and Simon Midgley as the girl’s boy friend suggest the Players really should look for better plays.