Simon Mendes da Costa came apparently from nowhere with this witty and cleverly staged play. After a launch at the Hampstead theatre it made a successful transfer to the West End and now finds itself playing to full houses at the Richmond Theatre. He was nominated for Most Promising Playwright in the Evening Standard Awards last year but lost out to Nell Leyshon, author of the intriguingly entitled Comfort Me With Apples. And Losing Louis is enjoyable, sharply directed and given a huge boost by a cast lead by the extraordinary Alison Steadman who runs off with the show safely tucked under her bangled arm.
      It is a family affair, with rivalrous brothers, bitchy wives, heavy drinking and 56 year old skeletons rolling out of the closet - all centred around the funeral of Louis, the paterfamilias. The action takes place in a single bedroom that hasn't changed in half a century, with full use made of cupboards, en suite bathrooms and people hiding under beds. The scenes switch between two time zones, so one moment we see Louis embroiled in an extramarital crisis the next we see his two sons hilariously quarrelling over his funeral preparations. The switches are slick and well crafted but the seriousness of the issues like infidelity and child mortality laid down in the early time zone are not developed in the later period, in fact they are completely overshadowed by the humour. "Don't lean forward", Alison Steadman is warned (she is wearing a tight, black, low cut dress). "Oh no!" she replies, "You only want one stiff at a funeral". Somehow, all sympathy you might have developed for the characters muddling through their lives in the early time zone gets left behind in translation.
      The two brothers, played by David Horovitch and David Cardy, and Rula Lenska and Alison Steadman as their wives make a fabulous foursome completely dominated by an irrepressible Steadman - a clucking, clicking, twitching, bitching force of nature. She is on fabulous form and is well cast as fun loving Sheila. Tony says "I can't take you to the stars Sheila", she replies, "I'm not asking for the stars; Lanzarote would do". All four of the actors in the later time zone play off each other with excellent timing, but the difference in the quality between their performances and the actors in the alternating scenes becomes more marked as the play goes on. It is probably this, as well as the surfeit of one liners in the later time zone scenes that serve to unbalance the play. It is a promising debut and entertains fabulously well. There was a lot of laughter round the stalls when I saw the play but despite trying it fails to do any more than. A catalogue of issues is raised from circumsision to disability but nothing important or revealing is said; but it is said with humour.
Charlie Taylor