Bernard play is in need of treatment

Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
Garrick Theatre
Joel Taylor

KEITH Waterhouse created a very funny play when he turned the anecdotes of a Soho drunk into a play in the late 1980s.
But it belongs in a different era.
Tom Conti is excellent as the shambolic Jeffrey Bernard as he muses over the dying body of Soho and an era which we are meant to look back upon as a golden age.
But if Bernard is anything to go by this is surely a mistake.
This presents him as an essentially pathetic alcoholic clown, competing for attention among prima donnas and drunks.
The premise is simple; Bernard falls asleep in the toilet of the Coach and Horses pub in Greek Street and the irascible landlord Norman Balon locks him in.
Bernard then spends a couple of hours drinking vodka and chain smoking, recounting tales and anecdotes to a doting crowd.
Having seen this play a couple of times and always enjoyed it I expected a satisfying evening at the Garrick Theatre, but this is a work in need of fresh blood.
This was once a contemporary work capturing a mood and atmosphere, but now it is more of an historical vignette and needs to be treated in this way – something director Ned Sherrin fails to do.
Nothing has changed since Peter O’Toole first took the role in 1989, there is even the slanty pub – although it must be said that the set is an excellent recreation of the Coach and Horses – the toilet is in the right place, it has an original £1 sandwich sign and faithful reproductions of Heath’s The Regulars cartoons on the wall.
The play basically works as a sketch show, moving formulaically from one set piece to another.
There are some wonderful comic moments, especially the pub trick involving a raw egg, the sleeve of a box of matches, a biscuit tin lid and a pint glass makes the audience want to leave and give it a go.
There is much fun to be found here but it remains a rather sad period piece.

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