Rob Brydon certainly keeps himself busy. Next month he is doing a gig with Tom Jones, next year he is in a play with Kenneth Branagh. And it’s theatre that is keeping him busy at the moment. Brydon is the undisputed star name in Future Conditional, the first production at the Old Vic under new artistic director Matthew Warchus.
Tamsin Oglesby’s multi-strand narrative explores the problems of the UK’s educational system. In one storyline we see a cross section of anxious middle class mums at the primary school gates pulling any strings they can to get their kids into the best state schools or otherwise face dreaded sink schools or the ideological dilemma of going private.
At the other end of the narrative there is an Oxford interview board deciding whether to offer a place to a strong all-round middle class candidate whose father donates generous sums to the college or to Alia, a striking, fiercely intelligent Pakistani refugee who has strong ideas of her own about changing the world, (obvious shades of Malala Yousafzi).
And then there is the Equality Commission committee wrestling with the subject of schooling. This group actually provides the most laugh-out-loud humour as the issues become increasingly heated. One debate ends in a slapstick cereal snack-based food fight, with adults behaving more like children than the children.
By contrast Brydon (picture by Manuel Harlan) as Mr Crane, the idealistic Welsh schoolteacher everyone will wish they had had, goes for a more subtle form of comedy. His classroom scenes are often played out to invisible pupils and have echoes of both Joyce Grenfell’s "not now George" monologues and Rowan Atkinson’s Headmaster sketch. The humour comes as much from his optimistic character's passion for learning and compassion for the classroom as it does from the finely-tuned way Brydon delivers a line.
The play is long at over two hours, but the scenes are short and punctuated by a School of Rock-style band playing in the balconies on opposite sides of the in-the-round stage. Even though the issues and some of the conclusions are familiar, it is impossible to be bored, particularly when the action cranks up after the interval.
Future Conditional is not as funny as the last thing I saw at the Old Vic, but then that was Daniel Kitson in Tree and few shows are going to match that. But it does tap into many important contemporary concerns. While the dialogue does not always ring true it is worth seeing for two stand-out performances – Nikki Patel as Alia and Brydon as Mr Crane. Full marks to the latter for not entertaining his pupils during break by bursting into a chorus of Sex Bomb.
Until Oct 3. Tickets here.
