Not for this viewer, it didn’t. It is another fun night out at The Abbey, which could safely be advertised as ‘The Abbey’s Christmas Pantomime’. At one point the stage erupts in a choreographed Wedding Dance to the accompaniment of Coleman Hawkins and his All-Star Jam Band’s ‘Crazy Rhythm’, which is all fine and well if one wants the kind of theatre one could bring one’s grandparents to with impunity, but not if one is looking for a challenging or moving experience. Nor is it a question of salty subversive unpalatable truths being served up in a sugary saccharine coating. It’s just tedious drivel about the financial basis of conventional marriage, and conventional marriage as a convenient conduit for the taming of unbridled desire, all of which we’ve heard before.
The one redeeming feature of the evening is Karen Ardiff’s performance as Figaro’s beloved Suzanne. Judging by what she can do here, and what she did in Good Evening, Mr Collins, she is the most vivacious young actress on the Dublin stage at the moment. Otherwise, one can only hope that The Abbey don’t play their next production, Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece The Importance Of Being Earnest, entirely for laughs as a period piece costume drama.

First published in 46A