Brian and Roger: A Highly Offensive Play review – Despite rascally performances, the jokes are too broad

Harry Peacock and Dan Skinner’s stage adaptation at the Menier Chocolate Factory is neither offensive nor subversive enough to undercut its irreverent title

‘Brian and Roger: A Highly Offensive Play’ is neither funny nor perceptive enough (Photograph by Nobby Clark)

The subtitle of Brian and Roger: A Highly Offensive Play becomes a curious albatross around its neck. Based on the dark comedy podcast by Harry Peacock and Dan Skinner, this new stage adaptation is neither highly offensive nor subversive enough to undercut a deliberately irreverent title.

The buddy comedy conceit is simple: Brian and Roger are two middle-aged divorcees who, having met at group counselling, have entered into an unlikely duo. Brian (Simon Lipkin, relishing every rascally second) is a cad and a conman, intent on roping the hapless Roger (a charmingly gullible Dan Skinner) into a series of increasingly ludicrous get-rich-quick schemes, which range from a high-stakes poker game in a Wiltshire abattoir to a convoluted plot that involves a pan-Asian autobahn, accidental bestiality, and a pair of bolt cutters.

Peacock and Skinner’s adaptation is faithful to the podcast’s format to a fault, simply transplanting Brian and Roger’s voice notes to one another onstage, and while David Babani’s production is stuffed with bells and whistles like campy costume changes, it can never quite escape that fundamental sense of inertia. It is no coincidence that the liveliest moment comes when Brian and Roger actually, finally, speak to one another directly.

The design is the real star of the show: Robert Jones’s set fills the Menier’s new studio space (previously the Bunker Theatre) with a remarkably lived-in community hall, complete with sickly green walls, a worn-out pommel horse, and chirpy motivational posters. It’s a surprisingly transformative space, too, with Timothy Bird’s characterful video design and Paul Anderson’s vivid lighting adding much-needed texture to a formally static, if geographically wide-ranging show.

The main problem, however, is that Brian and Roger is neither funny enough to sustain a nearly two-hour runtime, nor perceptive enough to make any discerning points about middle-aged white masculinity.

The jokes are broad, and aren’t so much carefully constructed as meandering: the semi-improvised beginnings of the podcast are evident. The punchline that follows a running gag about the duo’s penchant for the film Avatar isn’t worth the protracted build-up. And it isn’t particularly offensive, either, aside from one ill-conceived joke about non-consensual pegging which relies on shock value over anything more crafted, and is mostly disappointing in its laziness, rather than being anything especially provocative.

The design is the real star of ‘Brian and Roger: A Highly Offensive Play’ (Photograph by Nobby Clark)

There are gestures towards tenderness: Skinner in particular lends a pathos to his performance, as Roger’s desperate attempts to reconnect with his ex-wife and estranged teenage son form the heart of the piece, but the insight remains somewhat generic. Middle-aged men can feel sad and lost too: yes, absolutely, but that is seemingly the start and end of Peacock and Skinner’s observations. Offensive? No, not really. Dull? A little, unfortunately.