It’s quite the pivot going from blanket coverage of the D-day anniversary straight to Crizards’ This Means War. The one, reverential to the hilt; the other poking slacker fun, if not at war then at how it is usually represented. The show follows the double act’s 2022 debut Cowboys, a parody western which introduced their straight-man/mischief-maker dynamic and taste for stagecraft-with-a-shrug and crappy props. Those features are summoned to attention once more at this outing and are just as delightful – if no longer accompanied by the thrill of new discovery.
The conceit here is that deadpan Eddy Hare wishes to recreate his beloved grandfather’s wartime experience, which he has not fact-checked “out of respect”. Sidekick Will Rowland is worried that that might be boring, and seeks at every turn of Private Grandad’s mission through war-torn Belgium to add incongruity (Michael Jackson makes a cameo) or anachronistic colour.
The opening number – the musical highlight of a show whose songs don’t quite match Cowboys’ – hymns Crizards’ policy of doing things their way. Which means throwing combat cliches into the blender with dressing-up larks, juvenile jokes about cum, and meta commentary on the different types of battles that first grandad’s, and now Eddy’s, generations must face.
In Jordan Brookes’ production, the balance tilts well away from that microdosing of meaning towards a priority focus on silly, as Hare and Rowland have knowing good fun with the trope of the doomed friend, the War Horse-like bond between soldier and steed, and the squaddie’s nostalgia for idealised old England – or “Scrumpshire”, as Crizards would have it. We have fun too – even if silly never ascends to uproarious, what with Hare and Rowland being “Britain’s most low-energy double act”, and even if the running joke of Rowland’s non-commitment to the enterprise is overstretched.
But, oddly respectful even as it makes merry, This Means War remains a fine show to see in D-day week. It also confirms its creators as adept, loveable – if still developing – heirs to a narrative-comedy double-act tradition stretching back past Max & Ivan, the Pajama Men and beyond.
At Soho theatre, London, until 8 June
