Let’s start with a quiz question. Who were the first comedy double act in the business? Morecambe and Wise? Laurel and Hardy? Nowhere close. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? Keep going back. Not even Beowulf and Grendel, and there weren’t many laughs there. Believe it or not,  you’re looking at Dionysus and Xanthias, the loveable rogues who star in Aristophanes’ The Frogs, first performed in 405 BC. Stage Tragedy was going through a bit of a tragic phase (sorry) with the death of Euripedes the previous year. So Dionysus and Xanthias his servant decide to get off their backsides and travel to Hades to bring him back. As you do.

Of course, the journey is beset with obstacles, like Charon the ferry(wo)man, a bunch of singing frogs, and the grumpy Aeacus who guards Pluto’s gates. Possibly it wasn’t Dionysus’ best idea to disguise himself as Heracles for the journey, because Aeacus has a long memory and vengeance to seek against with him. Eventually they get in, only to find a debate taking place between Euripedes and Aeschylus, vying for the title of Best Tragic Poet. In the end, Dionysus prefers Aeschylus and rescues him back to Athens instead. What a fickle half God he is.

It’s written by Spymonkey and Carl Grose, “with massive apologies to Aristophanes”. However, I’m not sure those apologies are needed. From a story-telling point of view, this production recreates the original in a bizarrely faithful way, mutatis mutandis naturally. True, it loses the plot – quite literally – towards the end, but the journey to Hades, the relationship between master and servant, the swapping of clothing (pure Prince Charming and Dandini, to be honest) and getting past the gates all work pretty well.

I’ve always been a massive fan of Spymonkey, and it’s been one of the pleasures of regularly visiting the Royal and Derngate that the two have worked together so successfully over the years. Oedipussy, Cooped, Every Last Trick and The Complete Deaths, all bring back happy memories of laughing until it hurts. But it surprised me to discover that I hadn’t seen them since 2016, and a lot has changed since then. The long-lasting partnership of four performers is now reduced to two. Petra Massey is described as “on loan to Las Vegas”, so I guess she’s living the high life now. Gifted and fearless clown Stephan Kreiss sadly died in 2021. And, despite their best efforts, the two leave a massive hole on the Spymonkey map.

A Spymonkey show is never just about the show itself. It’s about how Spymonkey create the show and how the performers react to being in it. Unsurprisingly, there’s a considerable side spin to this production where the remaining performers, Spymonkey boss Toby Park and Spanish Supremo Aitor Basauri, are working out how they can continue as a twosome. They decide to adapt The Frogs to become a rescue mission for Stephan – to hell with Euripedes (literally), he’s old hat after all. Their Brighton office – which we see as a scene between the scenes – has become a shrine to their departed friend. Aitor briefly recreates Stephan’s staircase trick (Moby Dick refers). Toby plays and sings along to mournful music. However, for whatever reason, this impetus to remember Stephan comes across as an intrusion into private grief, and not an inspiration for the anarchic comedy with which we associate the company.

Unfortunately this also has a knock-on effect of making the third member of the cast, Jacoba Williams, feel like “the extra brought in” rather than an integral part of the team. Dionysus, Xanthias, Toby and Aitor have, between the four of them, formed a boy’s club, with Jacoba constantly tapping on the outside trying to get in. I’m sure this is not deliberate, but it’s inevitable that she does not have the same level of inter-performer trust that Toby and Aitor have. They’ve been inseparable on stage for decades, after all. Nowhere is this more evident than in the final scene where Jacoba walks off the stage and into the audience for no apparent reason and watches the two boys finish the show without her. It feels very unbalanced.

Nevertheless, there is still much to enjoy. Toby Park still embodies his traditional Spymonkey role of classical artiste with pretensions of adequacy, and Aitor Basauri can still make you split your sides with just one glance of those knowing eyes, such as in the excellent opening scene where Toby and Jacoba start up a nonsensical chorus whilst Aitor looks on in disbelief, only for him to then join in. Jacoba revels in some entertaining characterisations, including a no-nonsense Charon and a hearty Heracles, and she indulges in an enjoyable, if curtailed, TED talk. It’s full of comic business as you would expect, such as when Aitor has a bucket list of things to do on stage which he determinedly ticks off as he goes. And Jacoba has plenty of opportunities to have fun with the dressing-up box. Members of the Community theatre play the eponymous frogs who tap dance and sing their way across the stage; they make for a sweetly graceful troupe, if slightly self-consciously so.

I always associate Spymonkey with slick anarchy; here the anarchy is present, but the slickness is missing. I saw the final preview as opposed to the press night, so I appreciate there is room for it to be tightened up, but I fear there is quite a long way to go. For me, the show just doesn’t quite work, despite many of the elements being right. Hopefully it’s just a phase for the company and they bounce back with something more polished and assured next time around.

Production photos by Manuel Harlan