Romance

Genre: Comedy
Opened 14 Sep 2005
Written: by David Mamet
Directed: Lindsay Posner
Producer: Almeida
Cast: John Mahoney (Judge), Geff Francis (Bailiff), Nigel Lindsay (Defendant), Paul Ready (Bernard), Nick Sampson (Doctor), Colin Stinton (Defence Attorney), Nick Woodeson (Prosecutor)
Synopsis: A satirical farce set in a modern day courtroom exploring subjects ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, sexual fidelity, and world peace.

What the critics had to say.....
NICK CURTIS for THE EVENING STANDARD says, "This may not be Mamet's finest play - far from it, actually - but it is a bracingly misanthropic assault on the boundaries of taste and the smug belief that humans are innately good." PAUL TAYLOR for THE INDEPENDENT says, "Deliciously loopy production by Lindsay Posner." MICHAEL BILLINGTON for THE GUARDIAN says, "Generates a fair quota of laughs and shows that the play has its own demented logic." BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE for THE TIMES says, "Mahoney, a fine stage actor as well as a veteran of Frasier, starts by exuding a mild if barmy benignity and ends up high on those pills, weeping, stripping to his vest and looking and behaving as if he has stumbled from a multi-car pile-up. Solemn people will, I suspect, find this very, very silly. But I'm a sucker for send-ups of authority and found Mamet's mix of W. S. Gilbert and Monty Python very, very funny." CHARLES SPENCER for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH says, "This is one of those plays that should have remained in the dramatist's bottom drawer and the Almeida has done Mamet's reputation no favours in exposing it to the cruel light of day." JOHN THAXTER for THE STAGE says, "David Mamet's outrageous comedy of the American judicial system, fires satirical salvoes at almost all those off-limits topics of colour, race, creed, sexual persuasion and the US defence budget, before descending into blissful, if sometimes over the top, farce."

External links to full reviews from popular press
The Independent
The Guardian
The Stage
The Times
Daily Telegraph

** Production photo by Hugo Glendinning