Holiday friendships (especially those made on a cruise ship) aren’t meant to go beyond the holiday, right? Everybody knows that. It’s one of those dependable unwritten rules! Unless that is, you are Elsa Jean Krakowski, a brash American widow and Trump-devotee from Denver, with something of a disturbing history, who has just emailed to advise she’s standing outside your front door.Frances Barber has long enjoyed a close relationship with wayward OTT characters (Billie Trix springs readily to mind) and in her supremely capable and experienced hands Elsa blossoms into the nightmare house guest she promises (threatens?) to be. In Steven Moffat’s hilarious exposé of the perpetual British middle-class state of uptightness, the American’s ability to shine a glaring spotlight on our stilted couple — Reece Shearsmith as Peter and Amanda Abbington as Debbie — causes them to list from one sinking moment of awkwardness to the next, with just their faltering intellects enabling them to discern right from wrong and keep their faculties from going under completely. Weave into the mix the excruciatingly dysfunctional parent/child/sibling relationships courtesy of always-on-the-cusp-of-farting Alex Gabriel Howell and his prim bespectacled sister Rosie Maddie Holliday and the scene is set for our manipulative miscreant to masquerade her Mary Poppins magic, to cause matronly mischief and mayhem.
In true Poppins fashion, everyone‘s personality is ultimately improved by Elsa‘s overtly people-positive outlook, and even Peter finally succumbs to her blousy audacity — the man who previously bemoaned “What are flowers but vegetables to look at” upbraids his wife for dwelling too heavily on their murderous guest’s habit of poisoning people with whom she doesn’t get along!
Marvellously, Elsa spares a nosey policeman Marcus Onilude, but discerns that the irritating, passive aggressive neighbour played by Michael Simkins — whose name no-one can remember due to his rapacious appetite for boring and irritating everyone with whom he comes into contact — is a case worthy of treatment.
Mark Gatiss has directed Moffat’s speedy rhythmic writing pace almost as a Whitehall farce, deploying subtle lighting and music cues as masterfully as Brian Rix achieved in his day. The end result is a joyously idiotic spectacle realised on Robert Jones’ appropriately old-fashioned set, in one of London’s quaintest theatres, where even the faint whiff of damp carpet seems entirely appropriate and welcome.
The Chichester Festival Theatre‘s production runs in the West End until 16th April. Try your damnedest not to miss it… Elsa is not a lady to trifle with!
Based on the real life recollections of George Takei (known to millions as Mr Sulu in Star Trek), writers Lorenzo Thione and Jay Kuo have created