In Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle (the title is a philosophical red herring), two strangers meet at a station and embark on a relationship that is at once utterly unbelievable and drearily predictable.
Georgie (Anne-Marie Duff) is a kooky American of the kind that is, thankfully, only encountered on stage and film (think bargainbasement Annie Hall); Alex (Kenneth Cranham) is an English butcher 33 years her senior.
During a series of short scenes in his shop, near her work and, most implausibly, in bed the only interest is whether her designs are more on his body or his purse.
Some gentle humour aside, Heisenberg’s virtues are purely economic, being a two-hander on a largely bare stage.
Duff and Cranham give committed performances but Marianne Elliott’s modishly cool production compounds the artifice of the play.
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Young Frankenstein
★
Garrick, London
There is further disappointment in Young Frankenstein, where writer Mel Brooks and director Susan Stroman attempt to recreate the success of their Broadway version of Brooks’s The Producers.
It feels as if a camp B movie has been ineptly grafted on to a Las Vegas floor show.
The bad taste jokes and sexual innuendo would not have passed muster in a Cambridge Footlights revue. Young Frankenstein flopped when it premiered on Broadway 10 years ago.
Like the monster himself, it should never have been revived.