The curmudgeonly scribe familiar to anyone who listens regularly to BBC Radio 4 finally takes the stage in a live action step through the travails and difficulties inherent to Ed Reardon's misunderstood genius. Reardon, as performed by Christopher Douglas, lets the audience get a closer glimpse into his history and the things that shaped his sensibilities and future, helped along by two actor friends. It's a jolly show with a clever inclusion of the usual jokes about Tenko and Bert Kwouk, all wrapped in a familiar air of litererary pretention and self-aggrandisation.
Douglas shows that he can breathe life in the character of Reardon, both on stage as well as over the airwaves, but the assistance of the two stagehand actors seems a tad pat, and the inevitable falling out feels over-staged. Devotees of the radio show will lap this up and there is a lot here to draw in potential new listeners, despite the tendency towards jokes that will only makes sense to an audience of a certain age.