If a play were to be serialised like a sitcom or soap opera, would you go back week after week to watch each 'episode'?
Here writer/director/actor Adam Riches who has stuffed a cast of 14 into the teeny theatre under the Albany pub for his latest serialisation (there's a new episode every Monday, repeated on Tuesdays) has gambled on the answer being 'yes'. But inevitably, this comes with promises that later episodes will be self-contained, too.
The six sections chart the fortunes of the bar-owning Tuesdays dynasty. The first saw absurdly visionary 1806 publican Isaac Tuesdays - 'we'll have music speakers the size of Chinamen!' - set up a drinking den in Banstead, Surrey - a godforsaken patch where the children who die in the local workhouse (the pub's benefactor) are buried.
On the same site 201 years later, his female descendant's moneymaking scam involves trying to run the pub into the ground with the help of a libidinous Aussie on the run.
If the first half started off a little flat, the second soon picked up into a fun, lively affair, with numerous plot strands thickening like curdling custard.
Riches is blessed with some good, if occasionally over-zealous performers, and makes fine use of the space, allowing the actors to segue in and around the venue's nooks and crannies.
Three stars - but Riches leaves enough threads dangling to make you want seconds.
Tuesdays!
Lowdown at the Albany
240 Great Portland Street
W1 5QU
