The Little Dog Laughed, Douglas Carter Beane’s caustic satire on the sex lives and ensuing hypocrisies of the Hollywood machine, was not a huge success on its American premiere in 2005, perhaps because its broad but caustic swipes were too close to the bone. An altogether kinder reception awaits it in London, if the rapturous audience reception is anything to go by.
Beane’s play takes a hoary old chestnut, namely the closeted gay Hollywood pin-up Mitch (Rupert Friend, still probably best known as Keira Knightley’s significant other) whose terrifyingly Machiavellian agent Diane (Tamsin ‘Black Books’ Grieg) will do anything in her considerable power to stop him destroying his career by announcing his homosexuality; difficult, you’d have thought, when he is esconsed with charming hustler Alex (Harry Lloyd). Meanwhile, Alex’s on/off girlfriend Ellen (Gemma Arterton) is becoming more and more concerned at events, until a surprise second-act twist appears to provide the pat Hollywood ending that Beane is satirising.
It’s superbly acted by all the principal actors, especially Grieg as the kind of terrifying yet hilarious dragon whose mobile ring tone is sappy background music, and there are lots of sharp, telling one liners, such as when Diane says to Mitch ‘Are you British? Do you have a knighthood? Then shut up!’ Perhaps some of the jokes – references to male stars ‘taking their mothers to the Oscars’, nudge nudge – feel more like they belong in a classy sitcom than the West End, but this is a supremely diverting couple of hours all the same, and if you’re so inclined, the meta-theatrical references (are you, in fact, watching the play within a play?) provide fine food for thought after leaving the building.
Until 10th April. Garrick Theatre, Charing Cross Road, WC2. www.nimaxtheatres.com
