Arriving after two of the biggest hits of the year, Michael Wynne’s new comedy may be a victim of its venue’s previous successes. The Priory is not set in the celebrity detox clinic of the same name, but an isolated country pile that was once a monastery and is now a holiday home. It is New Year’s Eve and Kate has booked the place to draw a line under her annus horribilis during which she had a miscarriage, her boyfriend left her and her mother died. Yes, I did say a comedy.
The humour is delivered largely by Kate and her middle-class, high-achieving friends. How beastly they are to each other when their lives are revealed to be less successful then they would like them to be.
Though Wynne exposes a particular brand of middle-class cruelty, and Jeremy Herrin’s production is never less than entertaining, next to the Court’s monster hits Enron and Jerusalem, the lesson here – about how career success is not the only kind of achievement worth having – is relatively shallow. Still, for those looking for a cynical anti-seasonal play, The Priory will do very nicely.
(Tel: 020 7565 5000)