REVIEW: Marriage, Assembly George Square Studios ✭✭✭

Photo: Nick Kay Marriage

Assembly George Square Studios

Three stars

Comedians Theatre Company has earned a reputation for its sometimes anarchic plays featuring stand-up and sketch comedians. After past successes such as an adaptation of Sheridan’s School for Scandal, they have returned to a lesser-known classic, Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 comedy Marriage. It has been freely adapted by Tom Parry – best known as part of sketch trio Pappy’s – into a tight, well paced comedy, drawing on the talents of a variety of familiar faces from Edinburgh Festival Fringe sketch shows. It focuses on Peter, a dissolute bachelor who has turned to a matchmaker to save him the effort of finding a wife himself. Through the machinations of his best friend Charles, he takes on three other suitors who are all seeking the hand of dippy, marriage-obsessed Agatha.

The cast keep up the pace of the broad and often farcical comedy, with some excellent performances including Adam Riches as Charles, Ben Clark (another member of Pappy’s) as Peter, Owen Roberts of Radio 4’s Beasts as an infuriatingly tedious suitor, Celeste Dring as Agatha and Freya Parker as her aunt Nina – the latter two best known as sketch team Lazy Susan. Solidly directed by Russell Bolam, the production has less of the anarchy and exuberance of some of Comedians Theatre Company’s previous shows but it offers a fresh, modern twist on a Russian classic.