The Last Laugh – Review

Image above: David Tarkenter as the censor in The Last Laugh

Brilliant script, beautifully delivered, very, very funny

Watching The Last Laugh, a play about wartime censorship, I rather assumed it had been written at the time of the Second World War, but no, it was written by Japanese playwright Kōki Mitani in 2004.

It is timeless, taking place during a war – any war… All the action happens in one room, the censor’s office, where a young man has to come to receive the censor’s stamp of approval before he can put on his play.

The censor and the playwright can hear the sounds of distant bombing, sometimes nearer, sometimes further away, but the threat of war is ever present. It could easily be somewhere in Ukraine today and the theme is chillingly relevant.

Image above: David Tarkenter and Matt Wake

Adapted by Chiswick playwright Richard Harris

The Last Laugh has been adapted by playwright Richard Harris, a Chiswick resident who had huge success with the musical Stepping Out in 1984 when it won the Evening Standard Best Comedy award.

This production of The Last Laugh deserves to be another award winner and to transfer to the West End. It is brilliantly written and performed by David Tarkenter as the censor and Matt Wake as the writer. Directed by Nick Bromley as an in-house production for Theatre at the Tabard.

From the opening scene the two actors had the audience gripped, laughing out loud as they delivered almost every line. The script is very witty, playing on the conventions of making theatre as the young man, a comedy writer, tries to explain to the censor, a military general, who has no sense of humour whatsoever and who has never even been to the theatre, what it is he is trying to achieve.

“What are you trying to achieve?”

“To make people laugh.”

“Why?”

The general is genuinely perplexed, he does not see the point. He is deeply suspicious of a young man who is not away fighting at the front, as his own sons are, and cannot conceive what kind of degenerates might want to go and watch a comedy just for the sake of enjoyment. It does not compute with his own experience of the world.

Image above: Matt Wake as the young playwright

The general has been wounded; he lost a hand in combat and has been given a position he deeply resents having to take, sitting every day in an office doing a job he considers irrelevant. This is the first script he has looked at.

According to profiles of Kōki Mitani, he is a fan of the TV detective series Columbo and one of his favourite films is 12 Angry Men, the 1957 American courtroom drama with a jury deliberating the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder.

This play has something of both – the intensity of the argument as, starting from diametrically opposed positions, the two characters each seek to win over the other, and the birdlike focus as the general seizes on particular points, like Peter Falk did as Columbo does when he picked up clues.

Image above: David Tarkenter in The Last Laugh

David Tarkenter plays it absolutely straight throughout, poker faced and ridiculous. The general is not an unsympathetic character and he is even endearing as he briefly entertains the idea of blocking out a scene with the writer; he becomes almost enthusiastic.

Matt Wake as the young writer is sweetly earnest and over the course of what becomes many meetings appears to be winning some points in the argument.

Will the censor allow the play to be performed after over an hour of argument? Go and find out. You won’t regret it. It has been receiving four and five star reviews all round.

The most laughs I’ve heard in any theatre this year
Broadway World  ★★★★★

An hilarious, witty and poignant delight, which reminds us all that the theatre matters.
London Pub Theatres ★★★★1/2 (Nominated for a STANDING OVATION AWARD)

A gloriously funny battle of wits, packed with energetic comedy and metatheatrical in-jokes
Reviews Hub ★★★★

The Last Laugh is on at Theatre at the Tabard until Saturday 3 December.

Book tickets: Theatre at the Tabard

See also: Christmas things to do for families in and around Chiswick

See also: Andrea’s film reviews

See all the latest stories: Chiswick Calendar News & Features

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