The Shaw Festival Review: Chris Abraham and a fearless ensemble carry a towering comic confection with astonishing precision
By Ross
A great farce always feels a little like watching someone carry an impossibly tall wedding cake across a crowded room. Every wobble makes you gasp. Every doorway feels too narrow. Every unexpected entrance threatens complete disaster. You become convinced that somewhere, somehow, the whole glorious construction is about to collapse into buttercream and crumbs. That delicious anticipation is exactly what fuels the Shaw Festival‘s exuberant production of One for the Pot, where expert director Chris Abraham and his remarkable company transform a modest Whitehall farce into a breathtaking display of comic athleticism.
Premiering in London’s Whitehall Theatre in 1961, Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton’s comedy belongs to a tradition that delighted audiences with slamming doors, mistaken identities, hidden motives, and increasingly impossible situations. The premise of One for the Pot could hardly be more ridiculous. Billy Hickory Wood arrives at a country estate hoping to collect a £10,000 inheritance, only to discover the money depends upon him being the sole surviving heir. Naturally, a parade of long-lost identical brothers begins arriving almost immediately, creating chaos and impossible complications for Hickory Wood’s friend, Charlie, the one person on Hickory Wood’s side who truly understands what is at stake. The plot and the jokes themselves remain delightfully lightweight, but that was never really the point. Farce lives or dies by execution, by rhythm, by choreography, and by the willingness of everyone involved to commit completely to the madness unfolding before them. And at the Shaw Festival, that commitment is now a full-fledged ritual.
The miraculous Peter Fernandes (ShawFest’s One Man, Two Guvnors) embraces that challenge with astonishing stamina, creating an entire family tree of Hickory Woods, each with their own personality, physicality, and comic rhythm. Half the pleasure becomes trying to figure out how the production manages its endless costume changes, entrances, exits, and impossible sleight of hand without ever dropping the pace. Every new arrival earns another delighted burst of laughter simply because it seems impossible that Fernandes can be in so many places at the same time. Standing dutifully beside him, Martin Happer (ShawFest’s Murder-on-the-Lake) nearly steals the evening as Charlie, Billy’s perpetually overwhelmed accomplice, whose increasingly frantic attempts to keep the inheritance intact generate some of the production’s richest physical comedy.
Frequently drawn into those increasingly ridiculous schemes is Sanjay Talwar (ShawFest’s Candida) as the thoroughly bibulous butler Jugg, forever extending his hand for another discreet contribution to support his twin passions of drink and the dog races. Their scenes together become wonderfully tangled as Charlie desperately tries to keep the plan alive while Jugg is just as determined to keep his own bad habits comfortably funded. Patrick Galligan (ShawFest’s Sleuth) as the blustering Jonathan Hardcastle becomes another obstacle hurtling into the increasingly impossible situation, while Camille Eanga-Selenge (ShawFest’s White Christmas) and Fiona Byrne (ShawFest’s Major Barbara) fence expertly with every misunderstanding that lands in their path.
Abraham (Stratford’s Much Ado About Nothing; Crow’s Rosmersholm) directs with complete confidence in the mechanics of farce, allowing every entrance, every slammed door, every mishandled drink, and every carefully timed collision to land exactly when it should. The audience quickly stops asking what will happen next and begins asking, “How on earth are they going to pull this off?” Michael Gianfrancesco‘s elegant country house becomes an active participant in the comedy, providing hidden closets, dangerous moving pieces, and architectural opportunities for chaos that feel almost magical. Ming Wong‘s costumes help Fernandes’ revolving collection of brothers remain instantly recognizable and stereotypically hilarious. Thomas Ryder Payne‘s vintage English music hall selections have already placed us in exactly the right comic frame of mind before the curtain even rises. By the time Geoff Scovell‘s meticulously choreographed tumbles, collisions, and flying bodies take over, the evening has become a beautifully orchestrated machine that somehow never misses a beat.
The script itself may be one of the lighter entries in the great British farce tradition, but the Shaw Festival never pretends otherwise. Instead, the company embraces exactly what One for the Pot asks of them, trusting that craftsmanship, timing, and fearless commitment will carry the evening. They are absolutely right. Like that towering cake wobbling across the room, the joy comes from believing, if only for a moment, that everything could collapse spectacularly at any second. The miracle is watching an ensemble this gifted keep every layer perfectly balanced until the final curtain, making one of theatre’s most demanding balancing acts look gloriously effortless.