Name-dropping, hissy fits and walk-outs: all the passion, tension and rampant egotism of showbusiness is on display in this 1981 comedy by TV dramatist Jack Rosenthal.
Based on the author’s own experience of working on a musical version of his play ‘Bar Mitzvah Boy’ – a torturous process that resulted in a thumping flop – the script has been tweaked by Rosenthal’s daughter Amy for Tamara Harvey’s entertaining production. It remains shamelessly slight, and flirts consistently with cliché. But it’s crammed with zinging dialogue and performed with aplomb.
Natalie Walter is Liz, the London writer drawn helplessly into a vortex of creative confusion and compromise as her play is transformed into a mongrel monstrosity. Richard Schiff (of ‘West Wing’ fame) is the self-regarding Broadway composer who dismisses Liz’s first draft as a ‘fancy packet of crap’, Josh Cohen the unassuming British lyricist and Cameron Blakely the preening director.
Struggling to keep them all focused, and quietly in terror of losing his shirt, is Tom Conti’s producer. Disaster looms, yet the show must go on. There’s an excruciating inevitability about it all as the endeavour careens out of control; but watching the wheels come off is great fun.