The Little Dog Laughed

The play is a revival of a Broadway production, with pretty impressive (to me at least) American accents used throughout by the all English cast. This is the story of a gay actor being persuaded that to secure his dream role in a Hollywood movie, the closet of a fake fairytale marriage is a better career choice than a loving gay relationship.

Rupert Friend and Harry Lloyd play the star crossed lovers, Gemma Atherton has the fairly thankless role of the token girlfriend, but all were acted off the stage by Tamsin Greig who appeared to be an unstoppable but persuasive force of nature in the role of devious agent Diane. Like an Iago drawing us into her schemes, she managed to make us admire her daring and manipulations and love her style, even as she ripped the lives of the other characters to shreds to suit the movie industry ideal.

I saw the play in the week that Colin Firth won an Oscar for playing a gay man, but with little sign of a gay man winning an prize for playing a straight leading role, this raises the nasty question of whether Hollywood really does behave like this. Unbelievable, but also scarily believable. I suppose we won't know how accurate this is, unless and until we get a big star brave enough to step up and out.

Vicious, caustic and cynical in the best way, but very, very funny, this was a surprise hit for me. My lasting feeling, apart from a renewed crush on Tamsin Greig and aching ribs from the laughing, was sadness. So, a good job well done I think.