The National has thrown everything at this jolly production for the Festive Season: there are magnificent Ronald Searle inspired surreal sets, delightful G&S style songs that introduce and close each act and the splendid American comic actor John Lithgow stars as the hapless title character. Yet it is trimmings such as these that linger in the memory and the main course, Arthur Wing Pinero’s slightly satirical late-19th Century farce, seems rather unworthy of them. Whilst it is true that there are some moments of inspired comedy, sadly there are also long spells of tedium when not even the greatest efforts of those involved can breathe life into the play.
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The Beast's Pen 