'The Little Dog Laughed' at The Garrick Theatre

"The little dog laughed and the dish ran away with the spoon..." yes, the title of the play comes from the old nursery rhyme which was recited at the end to sum up that a happy ending was needed - and was delivered.

'The Little Dog Laughed' was playing its penultimate night at the Garrick before closing tomorrow. It's the comic tale of a gay actor from Los Angeles who hides behind girlfriends he doesn't sleep with who phones up an agency for a rent boy while he's in New York after winning an award. He and the rent fall in love (-ish) but it's complicated by two sub-plots, one involving the rent boy sleeping with a girl friend (ie a friend who's a woman) who becomes pregnant, and the actor's agent trying to get him the lead in a screen adaptation of a play about men who fall in love. So, there are plots within plots and we need someone to help us through the twists and turns on the stage before us, and that's the actor's agent, in the shape of Tamsin Greig.

Tamsin's character is both narrator as well as actor, every now and then stepping out of the action to talk to the audience, and she plays it larger than life and very knowing. I liked the idea of the character-cum-narrator and she had great one-liners but she played it full-on 100% of the time rather than with any more subtlety. The two lads were a bit one dimensional as well, both skinny and interchangeable (especially when they stripped to underwear) and both had dodgy accents with every sentence ending on rising intonation. Chris commented at half time that they sounded like they were from 'Avenue Q' up the road and that summed them up perfectly. I quite liked the pregnant girl.

I enjoyed the show and I'm pleased to have seen the play but part of me understands why it's closing early.

Every now and then a rather heroic laugh drew attention to itself in the row just in front of us - Sir Derek Jacobi, who also came up to the bar at half-time, ramrod straight back and very neat hair. And that reminds me of a tip to pass on - there is a large bar upstairs at the Garrick with a balcony over Charing Cross Road and no-one seems to know it's there. The downstairs bar was crowded and the upstairs was virtually empty. I must remember that if I go back to the Garrick anytime soon.