Review: Rough Crossing, Leeds Grand Theatre, until Saturday

AMID a jamboree of hallelujah hits, from Benidorm: Live to The Full Monty and Kinky Boots next week, the Leeds Grand has accommodated a week-long run of a Bill Kenwright production of a different kind.

Taking to the seas is Kenwright’s re-launch of Pocklington School alumnus Tom Stoppard’s typically arch 1984 comedy of ill manners and artistic egos The Rough Crossing with music by Andre Previn. It comes gilded in the finest ocean-going livery: steered by director Rachel Kavanaugh, designed elegantly by Colin Richmond and festooned with a fancy cast of La Cage Aux Folles’ John Partridge; The Saint’s Simon Dutton; one-time Fascinating Aida cabaret chanteuse Issy Van Randwyck; the ever reliable Matthew Cottle and rising star Charlie Stemp, soon to shine in Mary Poppins in London.

Think of Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde’s sophisticated dinner-jacket comedies, read the show synopsis, and hopes are high that smart, dry comedy and high jinx will be forthcoming on the high seas as two famous playwrights (the acerbic Partridge and more accommodating Cottle), a jealous composer (Rob Ostlere), an unorthodox waiter (Stemp) and a mistimed lifeboat drill set Stoppard’s comedy in motion.

As the Atlantic winds turn gale force, Van Randwyck’s drama queen actress, Natasha, and Dutton’s luvvie thesp, Ivor, join in an increasingly absurd whirl of events while rehearsing en route to New York. For all the polish, and especially Stemp’s verbal and physical dexterity, Rough Crossing runs aground on a dearth of laughs, too self-indulgent, too in-joke, too smug.