What the Butler Saw, Vaudeville

Shrink trapped

What the Butler Saw is seriously un-PC. Rape is presented as an unwarranted but welcome interlude, all young bodies are ripe for exploitation, adultery is the norm, incest an endorsement and madness is all around - but then, we are in a psychiatric facility and, inevitably, the doctors are as lunatic as the inmates. You can see it's funny. It should also be clever. The beauty of Joe Orton's script is that funny and clever build up in tandem so by the end you're grinning like a loon because madness is just part of the normal spectrum.

Things start simply. The chief psychiatrist (Tim mcInnerny) is setting up his new secretary on the couch so he can sexually abuse her when his nyphomaniac wife (Samantha Bond) sweeps in, full of anxiety because the bellhop with whom she had sex the previous night is blackmailing her over pornographic pics. Each is busily hiding secrets from the other when the appearance of a crazed visiting psychiatrist (Omid Djalili) ups the ante. Everyone is being certified.

What we have over two hours is a confusion of small madnesses that slowly trap the characters inside fantastical, farcical straitjackets, but the decision to run this production like a Carry On film we've joined halfway, means much of the nuance and irony is lost or compromised. Bond and McInnerny are brilliant, saving lines from instant death. McInnerny's hair is well used as an emotional barometer and Bond teeters at such wildly staged angles that her calves bulge like hams.

In conclusion: If you can just sit back and enjoy the play without deconstructing it, the stellar line up is impressive. Djalili acts like someone who's watched Peter Sellers too many times and the whole feel is dated, but they give it their all.

References:
Vaudeville Theatre
Henry Hitchings review in The Evening Standard