'Carry on Brighton' review or 'This puffed up poof has run out of steam.'

'Carry on Brighton', Jackie Skarvellis

Phoenix Artist Club, Thursday 5^th January

Written For Time Out 

 

'Puffed up poof', Henri, is getting married and everyone in Brighton is invited! But, despite the lure of an OK! photoshoot, Henri's fiance has gone missing. He might be in the desert. But it's very hard to say, since the plotting is so poor and the performances, despite an abundance of neon pink costumes, bland and timid.

Jackie Skarvellis's camp farce, 'Carry on Brighton', has been marketed as frisky and risque. If only. The jokes have so little conviction that the 'punchlines' often float by, unnoticed. Instead of spicy banter, we get hackneyed wordplay. 'I will' is confused with 'willy', and a randy priest is described as going down on his knees - only not for praying!

Daniel Simpson, as self-obsessed soapstar Henri, at least has a little flair and presence. But the rest of the cast is bizarrely low-key. Many of the actors struggle with their lines and it's often very hard to make out the dialogue - which isn't, to be honest, a terrible loss.