It is impossible to produce an irreverent historical comedy without inviting comparisons with Blackadder and this romp certainly knows it. Writer Stewart Lee even makes a pre-emptive strike by namechecking Baldrick and co’s authors Ben Elton and Richard Curtis. Maybe he should give them some royalties, too.
The tissue-thin plot involves Raleigh (Miles Jupp) wooing Queen Bess (cross-dressing Simon Munnery). After bragging about winning "Celebrity Cock-Fighting On Ice" his seduction technique falters. The potato-populariser promptly finds himself facing the chop.
And that is it. Numerous jokes feel as if they date back to 1600 and the cast often seems to be enjoying proceedings more than the audience. Amiable posho Jupp has a whiff of Stephen Fry about him, while Munnery’s gnomic one-liners sound smuggled in from his stand-up: "Violence is the only language the Spanish understand... and Spanish, of course."
This is Stewart Lee going for broad laughs in silly rather than subversive mode. As history mash-ups go, it is harmlessly daft fun. The sight of two grown men wearing ships on their heads is worth the ticket price alone.
Croydon Clocktower, 16 October
(020 8253 1030, www.croydonclocktower.org.uk).
Elizabeth & Raleigh: Late But Live
The Bloomsbury Theatre
Gordon Street, WC1H 0AH
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