The Painkiller

Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Third-rate news photographer Brian is having a bad day.

He’s come to London in search of his estranged wife (Claudia Harrison), who has abandoned him for the glamorous psychiatrist Dr Hugh Dent (Stuart Graham).

He phones her constantly, pleading for her return.

But no. That leaves him with one way to end the agony. Meanwhile in the adjoining room, suave hitman Ralph is having a normal day. Elegantly dressed, he deftly assembles a rifle, takes aim through his window on the court- house and waits. If only the guy on the other side of the connecting door had made a decent job of his suicide attempt, they could both have been on their way.

But, alas for them and happily for the audience, it is not to be.

In typically French comedic tradition, there are lots of loose ends, unlikely pairings and inexplicable comings and goings in Sean Foley's breakneck new adaptation of Le Contratby Francis Veber. The prolific Paris-born writer/director was reportedly none too keen on this early work, but that does not prevent us from splitting our sides at Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon's brilliantly contrasting performances, which, under Foley's unflagging

direction, shamelessly milk every last blink of humour out of an increasingly chaotic series of farcical misunderstandings, confused identities and apparently homo-erotic grapplings.

Branagh unleashes the full battery of his physical comedy skills onto the tight-lipped, uber-controlled Ralph, finding the perfect foil in the deadpan earnestness of Brydon’s Brian.

Mark Hadfield is deliciously camp as the bewildered hotel porter, Stuart Graham does a nice line in wide-eyed stupor as Dr Dent on speed, while the main function of Andy Moore’s cop is to engage in some slapstick fisticuffs with Brangh.

Alice Power’s glossy hotel set looks great on the big new Lyric stage and the whole present- ation carries all the razamatazz of London’s West End.

Runs until 16th October.