Davies an acquired taste

A small load of theatrical rubbish, otherwise known as a black, farcical comedy by Morris Panych, was dumped in this prettiest of West End theatres last night.

Hundreds of innocent playgoers were caught up in the ensuing, noxious mess. For a full, not to say bloated, 90 minutes the audience was subjected to the spectacle of the stand-up comedian Alan Davies playing a virtual solo role as Kemp, a friendless, phlegmatic bank clerk who had come to attend his ancient aunt on her deathbed.

The deadpan, famously rueful Mr Davies is obviously an acquired taste, a taste which, on the evidence of Auntie And Me, leaves me faintly bilious. The play went down a treat on Edinburgh Festival's fringe last year. But here it may just go down the drain.

"Let's not talk about anything depressing. Do you want to be cremated?" a jovial, unemotional Davies asks the wordless, bed-bound Aunt Grace (Margaret Tyzack) almost as soon as he arrives. He even waits a decent interval - a few minutes - before instructing, "Here, sign your will. You're leaving everything to me" and demanding to know whether she'll leave her vital organs to medical science.

True to the play's farcical form Davies's Kemp, with far too many stagey hand gestures, casts aside the trappings of polite behaviour and asks no end of questions, all on the same deathly theme, about how Grace wishes her own end to be commemorated.

Since Tyzack's Aunt says not a word in reply and her facial expression remains eloquently stricken, this crude, deathbed candour did not strike me as funny, clever, revelatory or illuminating. Judging, though, by regular laughter from scatterings of some determined laughers in the stalls, Panych aimed to make fun of deathbed solemnities and reticence. Or perhaps the first-night audience was full of the only people who could enjoy Auntie And Me - those hopelessly addicted to Alan Davies.

Anna Mackmin's awkward production, with brief black-outs every few minutes, makes it often seem as if Auntie And Me is a tirade of one-liners, all of which Davies delivers in the same put-upon, malcontented tone. At last, however, there is the semblance of development.

Grace remains mysteriously silent but far from dying, revives, eats and knits as the months pass by. She even inspires Kemp to threaten in a typical example of Panych's elementary humour: "If you don't die soon, I think it's going to kill me." But there's no logic or consistency to the writing. Davies's increasingly irritable Kemp tries to turn the tables and engineer Grace's death yet, in his loneliness, he begins to show a need for her and a resentment that she didn't maintain contact with him in the past. Kemp's a people-hating bisexual. And Grace, unbelievably, becomes his solace.

It would be unfair to reveal the final, unremarkable twists of farce, or the significance of the generous words that Tyzack's sweet, sad, utterly endearing Grace delivers. But her words are true to the play's knockabout, unrealistic nature. Davies is completely flummoxed whenever required to stop being plaintive and to convey tenderness or compassion. He just puts on a perfunctory, feeble show - but then, he's in one after all. Is this all they can find for Wyndhams?