I am perhaps overfond of damning with faint praise by using the adjective “affable”. I am fairly sure I must in the past have used it about both the comedy company Spymonkey and the less successful Kneehigh productions. So, when Kneehigh’s artistic director Emma Rice enrols her frequent writing colleague Carl Grose to join her on a Spymonkey project, the result is… I’m sorry.
    
The ’Monkeys constitute one of a number of comedy outfits – together possibly forming an entire subgenre which might reasonably be termed “playing silly buggers” – that I constantly feel I should appreciate more, and feel repeatedly guilty for not being overwhelmed. Nor underwhelmed, let me be clear; just, you know, whelmed. This international quartet (Britons Toby Park and Petra Massey, German Stefan Kreiss and Spaniard Aitor Basauri), with the added creativity of Rice and Grose, have a plethora of ideas and an undoubted mastery of a range of comic skills in their project to make a comedy of the most classic tragedy of them all, that of Oedipus. The tweaked title suggests James Bond, and that parody is present and correct, but so are a host of others, from the vaguely Barbarella-ish costume of Jocasta to the physical-theatre daftness of the Oracles, dressed entirely in Lycra and bouncing around giant balloon eyeballs. The company themselves are also the butt of humour, as each individual shares their insecurities with us. And there are several points of unalloyed brilliance.
    
However, there are also misfires. Rice’s programme note calls this “a huge story told in a short space of time”, yet the comedy’s playing time is around 20% longer than most versions of Sophocles’ original tragedy. The final minutes are more Kneehigh than Spymonkey, distilling the vein of sadness in a classic tale (and let’s face it, they didn’t have to look far for it in this case). Above all, and despite the undoubted performance abilities of all concerned, the comedy remains somehow baggy, lacking in the zest of mood or execution that would give it a sharper and more complex tang upon the theatrical palate. At bottom, the only thing wrong is that it is so very nearly – and yet in the end not – so very much more than simply, yes, affable.

Written for the Financial Times.