Alice (Amanda Holt) and Jake (Gregory Cox) co-exist together in a once beautiful Château in France. Jake has been banished to a section of the Château and wallows around in his mess and filth, even their Maid servant played by Natasha Percival refuses to go near the area.

The couple are no longer together although we aren’t sure about Jakes’s take on the relationship as further in the play he suggests that they finally get married after all the years they have been together.

Jake’s two children Felicity (Ian the Bathurst) and Roger ( Christopher Tomkins) arrive to help sort out their Father and try to clean him up. Alongside Monty (Harry Saks) who has romantic designs on Alice.

Finally, we are introduced to the stereotypical French corrupt police officer and slightly creepy lothario, Bertrand (Nirjay Mahindru) who we are told has had romantic encounters with all the women in the nearby village along with Alice and Felicity. Although I wasn’t overly convinced by this statement.

The farce has potential and there are some funny one-liners amongst the bitchy conversations between the broken-down family dynamics. Stumbled over lines halted the delivery in places and interrupted the flow of the play. The musical numbers performed by the cast didn’t appear to be in keeping with the storyline and were more of a distraction. A good farce needs to be sharp and fast-paced which Château Farci could achieve with editing.

Set designer Emma Turner has creatively turned the theatre space into a believable cross-section of an ageing ramshackle Château in the French countryside. The large painted windows give the audience a sense of the rural surroundings and the partly torn wallpaper allows a glimpse inside the riches that once lived within its walls.

The cast worked well together and the actors playing Roger and Felicity had facial likenesses which allowed the audience to believe they could have been siblings and the pair captured the snippy conversations and dynamic siblings often have.

For more information about Château Farci and future productions at White Bear Theatre in Kennington please click on the link below.

Three stars.

https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/