If I say that Steffan Rhodri’s Littledick stands out at first but climaxes too early, you immediately get the flavour of this revival. Director Sean Foley and his co-adapter Phil Porter have updated the language of Thomas Middleton’s 1605-ish city comedy (Littledick was originally Short-Rod Harebrain), but none of the knob-gags are new. Foley describes it as “beyond doubt the filthiest play I’ve ever read”, and from an experienced comedy performer and director (here making his RSC début) that’s saying something.
    
Foley and Porter have set out to remain faithful to the smut, the wit, the bad puns and the general rumbustiousness of the city comedy. The genre’s concerns boil down to sex, money and endless personal reinvention. For the first, consider the scene where Littledick eavesdrops on his wife cuckolding him but is deceived because her gasps and ejaculations seem to be part of a conversation with her spiritual adviser… who is in fact a prostitute in disguise, which takes care of the reinvention as well. Not as much, however, as the case of Dick Follywit: in the course of two and a half hours of energetic Dicking around, Richard Goulding has to don at least four disguises and portray as many more distinct aspects of the character’s “proper” persona. Though I may have lost count.
    
Foley excels at physical comedy, and he puts his cast through their paces with fine results. I particularly liked John Hopkins’ talent for deadpan self-injury and Richard Durden’s cheeky rip-off of the doddering-servant gag so successfully deployed in One Man, Two Guvnors. Amongst the women, Sarah Ridgeway revels in her role-play (even though her mock-nun sometimes sounds more Barbadian than Irish), and Ellie Beaven gets to double as Mrs Littledick and a succubus who won’t take no for an answer… yes, this is an urban comedy that includes a genuine infernal demon. The setting has been moved to 1950s Soho, with frequent jazz and blues numbers (more applause for vocalist Linda John-Pierre) ranging from standards such as “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” to an authentic down’n’dirty number entitled “Big Long Slidin’ Thing”. All in all, it is not at all what you would expect even of one of the RSC’s most vigorous and puritan-outraging reimaginings. It even shocked me. But stuff all that, it’s fun (and other things) with a capital F.

Written for the Financial Times.