Ian McKellen proves age is no barrier to laughter: PATRICK MARMION reviews Frank and Percy 

Frank and Percy – Theater Royal, Windsor

Judgement:

What about underrepresented minorities? 84-year-old Ian McKellen and soon-to-be 70-year-old Roger Allam in a softly fizzy comedy about a pair of old codgers who fall in love while walking their dogs.

The play’s two wobbly heroes – like their beloved mutts Bruno and Toffee – have no chin between them.

McKellen is a dowdy, semi-retired sociology professor from Whitby who regrets that his relationship with ex-husband Denis broke up because they ‘couldn’t make it work after Princess Margaret died’. Allam is a slightly more representative ex-history teacher who lost his wife Alice to a brain tumour.

The charming thing about Ben Weatherill’s left-wing rom-com is that it’s rooted in the petty trivia of everyday life. They bond over Pontefract cake, chat about long-lost dads, remember hip replacements, pop blood pressure pills, share fun facts about watermelon, and finally get around to testing a smooch.

Although barely out of shorts, Weatherill has a mature and loving sense of life in old age. His playing is full of psychological nuances – bad temper and frivolity – as the two men’s attachment to them (and us) grows like a vine. But as a stealth comedy, there are at least four episodes of a TV sitcom buried here, and brilliant lines include McKellen’s stoic comment, “We’ve got half an hour before the Viagra kicks in.”

Both men are sexually, medically, and psychologically frank as only old people can be.

There is also no preaching about sexual politics. The closest the controversy comes to is Allam’s Frank discovering that McKellen’s Percy has a somewhat alarming line in climate change denial. But a bit like Allam’s Radio 4 comedy with Joanna Lumley, Conversations From A Long Marriage, the two creaking old timers are a perfect match.

Set on a pair of revolving terraces with a view of the forests of Hampstead Heath projected beyond, the action inventively meanders through a tea room, pub, M&S workshop, veterinary surgery, restaurant and cemetery. And while the shadow of death inevitably falls over Sean Mathias’ warmly affable production, he makes sure the tone is mournful yet shredded and light as a cheese soufflé.

At two and a half hours, it’s a bit long for comedy. But who wouldn’t want to see McKellen in a tutu, Allam mixing shiny rainbow shorts with socks and sandals, or the pair crying like elderly fangs in a karaoke bar?

Both men are sexually, medically and psychologically candid as only old people can be (pictured on This Morning on June 1)