On Wednesday evening I ventured out to a tiny fringe theatre in north London’s trendy Islington. After making my way through a tacky modern shopping arcade and going down four flights of stairs, I arrived at the venue of Amanda Abbington’s first play since her Strictly ordeal ended, a production entitled (This Is Not A) Happy Room.
Never has a play been more aptly named. The 7pm start was delayed by more than an hour due to ‘technical difficulties’, which was odd because the stage was so small it could have fitted into my kitchen and the minimalist set consisted of just eight chairs and a coffee table.
More to the point, the production was a complete, unmitigated disaster. Trite, obvious, embarrassing to watch and so sleep-inducing that folk were nodding off, me included, as there were too few jokes to keep us awake. Perhaps worst of all, it was 90 minutes long with no interval, and so there was no opportunity to make an escape.
To be fair, it was the first full showing of the play. The night before the performance, the audience received a rather panicked email telling us: ‘This preview performance will now be an open dress rehearsal.’
At this point, I should explain that Amanda and I have crossed swords more than once over her epic spat with her former Strictly dance partner Giovanni Pernice last year.
After they were paired up to compete for the glitterball in 2023, she accused him of ‘unnecessary, abusive, cruel and mean’ behaviour, which was, at times, sexually inappropriate.
When Amanda Abbington took to the stage, I swear she clocked me immediately and gave me her ‘burn in hell’ stare, the one Giovanni must be only too familiar with, writes Amanda Platell
Ms Abbington left Strictly after week six and complained about dance partner Giovanni Pernice
Despite being one of Strictly’s best celebrity dancers and looking absolutely fabulous in sequins, she not only quit the show after week six but complained about Pernice to the BBC.
While I was a cheerleader for Giovanni during their potentially career-ending battle, which ended with six of Abbington's complaints of verbal bullying and harassment being upheld, I still felt a certain curiosity about what Amanda was doing now.
Given my familiarity with Abbington’s volatile nature, I was a little disturbed to discover that the seats my friend and I had booked were in Row 2. There was no one in front of us and so I had a clear view of the stage and Amanda would have a clear view of me, too!
When she took to the stage, I swear she clocked me immediately and gave me her ‘burn in hell’ stare, the one Giovanni must be only too familiar with. Maybe I imagined it, but I don’t believe I did. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t have left the theatre alive.
Abbington plays a middle-aged divorcee grudgingly about to celebrate the third - or fourth - marriage (that’s one of the jokes) of her former husband to a much younger woman.
It’s a case of life imitating art a bit as Amanda is herself a 51-year-old separated mother of two. And her real-life ex, Hobbit star Martin Freeman, 53, is now loved up with a French actress, Rachel Benaissa, 23 years his junior. (Maybe that’s where Amanda got the bitterness she brings to bear in her portrayal of the dumped wife in the play.)
It is billed as a cross between the darkly sexual film Saltburn and the hilarious Netflix series Schitt’s Creek. Sadly, as I discovered to my cost, without the sex in the former and the laughs in the latter.
When Abbington first appeared, the matriarch of what’s described as ‘a happily dysfunctional family’, she did hold the stage.
Despite the fact that her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week, there is something about Abbington - an hauteur, a grandeur.
Which left me wondering: How did it come to this? How did such an illustrious career, with roles in Sherlock and Mr Selfridge, take such a banal turn resulting in a four-week run of a mediocre play in the basement of a shopping mall?
