Review: The Way Old Friends Do, Park Theatre

“ABBA have got me through so much. I listen to them when I’m on top of the world; I listen to them when I’m at my lowest ebb.” So says Peter, the central character in this comedy-drama about two men’s love of the Swedish super-group, and you can tell it’s a sentiment shared by Ian Hallard, the show’s creator who also plays Peter. Me too: I can’t imagine a world without ABBA, their music has enriched my life immeasurably. So I am very much this play’s target audience – but is a common passion all that’s needed to buy into the story?

Said story concerns Peter (Brummie, camp) and Edward (posh, ultra-camp, James Bradshaw), middle-aged ex-schoolfriends who’ve been reunited by Grindr and theatrical contrivance. Peter is ostensibly bisexual but not yet out to his beloved Nan (a pre-recorded Miriam Marggolyes),while Edward is civilly partnered to the unseen Melvin. Neither are interested in each other sexually, but their significant childhood friendship – based on ABBA and otherness – is revived.

Despite traumatic memories of singing ABBA together at a disastrous school concert, Peter and Edward fall into a plan to perform a gender-flipped drag ABBA tribute act with ditzy young actress Jodie (Rose Shalloo) and local pianist Mrs Hermione Campbell (Sara Crowe) playing Benny and Bjorn to their Agnetha and Frida.

The show is fun in a very broad-brush sort of way: a plucky Brit-flick tale of little people trying to realise a dream, shot through with an old-fashioned slug of 70s sitcom. There is a smattering of genuinely funny lines, and the whole is propelled by a palpable sense of love of the subject matter.

How you feel about camp may determine how you react to The Way Old Friend’s Do. Hallard and his director/husband Mark Gatiss grew up in an age when gay men were mostly invisible in popular culture. They were only tolerated in the laughable form of entertainers such as Larry Grayson and John Inman: limp-wristed figures of ridicule. It was a dark time for queer representation, so why a contemporary play should present us with a character like Edward – a bitchy queen who even Alan Carr would probably advise to take it down a notch – is a mystery. The straight friend who accompanied me to the play was infuriated by the character: his gay uncle had been a military man with not a camp bone in his body, and such shallow, vulgar stereotyping makes him very angry.

Many in the audience, I’d say about half, found him very funny. Elsewhere in the cast, Hallard is a solid, knowing presence as Peter, Shallo is fine as simpleton Jodie, as is Donna Berlin in the underwritten role of lesbian stage manager Sally. The standout performance for me was Crowe’s Mrs Campbell hardly an original character, but this sweet Scottish lady with a naively up-for-it attitude is judged to perfection, bringing lovable notes of June Whitfield to a delightful masterclass in comic acting.

The first half ends just before the act go on stage for the first time, with an admirably sleek bit of lighting as the contrasting wigs of the Agnetha and Frida are iconically singled out in individual spotlights. Part two starts in the immediate aftermath of the successful show, introducing us to hot young photographer Christian (Andrew Horton) – a fellow ABBA devotee who persuades the group to continue. Despite his smoothie come-ons, Christian ends up throwing several spanners into the works, but when the play tries to deal with genuine psychological truths its writing and paper-thin dramatis personae can’t support the weight of the attempted realism, and the efforts to mine genuine emotion ring hollow.

But for all the play’s flaws, I found myself in tears at the end. In a sudden and unexpected shift of tone, Peter and Edward share a wonderfully tender moment as together they gently sing the opening lines from the song that gives the show its title: “You and I can share the silence, finding comfort together, the way old friends do. And after fights and words of violence, we make up with each other, the way old friends do…” I found myself transported by the wistful melody and hopeful words, and I stopped caring about the camp nonsense and feeble characterisation of the previous two hours to simply enjoy a moment of beauty. That’s the genius and magic of ABBA. The show ends with one more swivel of the impressive stage revolve and all the characters in ABBA costume for a happy clappy curtain call. Horton’s performance as bad boy Christian earns him pantomime “Boo!”s, which he smilingly shrugs off. I expect the show’s creators will bat away critics of the production with similarly confident resilience.

Written by: Ian Hallard
Directed by: Mark Gatiss
Produced by: A Birmingham Rep production presented by James Seabright in association with Jason Haigh-Ellery and Park Theatre

The Way Old Friends Do plays at Park Theatre until 15 April. Further information and bookings can be found here.