Mates in Chelsea: Wodehouse meets Wilde in this superb skewering of the smart set

Fenella Woolgar and Laurie Kynaston in Mates in Chelsea
Fenella Woolgar and Laurie Kynaston in Mates in Chelsea - Manuel Harlan

Rory Mullarkey’s new play didn’t sound like a hot-ticket. Firstly, it’s on at the Royal Court, which has oddly dwindled as a new writing powerhouse. Furthermore, Mullarkey’s CV is patchy: his satirical epic Saint George and the Dragon, while having redeeming features, was a memorable flop in an annus mediocris for the National in 2017 (his Pity at the Royal Court a year later, crossing the zest of Monty Python with civic unrest, impressed me more, but didn’t find much critical favour).

The title, with its word-play on the reality TV series Made in Chelsea, following moneyed young south-west Londoners in their affluent aimlessness, sounds a bit pat. What’s more, Mullarkey wrote a lengthy preview in the Guardian headlined: “Why do I, a socialist playwright, love to watch the rich?” I’d rather cut grass with scissors, a la North Korea, than endure a tub-thumping exercise in bringing poshos to book.

Yet Mullarkey’s latest opus proves to be that rare thing at the Royal Court, a near-unalloyed delight, making political points, yes, but with a premium placed on entertainment value, delivered to the hilt in Sam Pritchard’s gloriously funny, joyously acted production. If it might seem to have missed the ‘toffs on top’ moment, it insinuates a more timeless perspective on money, class and who runs the show: drawing on a Wildean model of epigrammatic wit, and doffing his cap to the exuberant buffoonery found in PG Wodehouse, Mullarkey introduces us to a bubbled lifestyle poised to experience the explosive pin-prick of reality.

As languid and nonchalant as Wilde’s Algernon Moncrieff, readying to receive his aunt, Lady Bracknell, Laurie Kynaston’s raffishly likeable Theodore – known to pals as ‘Tug’ – awaits the arrival of his “gorgon” mater, Agrippina (Fenella Woolgar) down from their Northumberland castle (“Dimley Grange”).

He’s expecting a dressing-down about his overspending, which she duly itemises in the quotable style that is the script’s ostentatious forte (“The largest floristry bill since the Dutch tulip bubble!”). Despite his efforts to blame her for the cash-crisis (He: “Where’s it all gone..? Gigantic contributions to the Conservative Party?” She: “I don’t donate to Left-wing pressure groups…”), the buck stops with him. Dandyishly unemployed, he stands to forfeit his beloved bucolic retreat, the pile poised to be sold off to a Russian oligarch called Oleg.

Laurie Kynaston, Fenella Woolgar and Karina Fernandez in Mates in Chelsea
Laurie Kynaston, Fenella Woolgar and Karina Fernandez in Mates in Chelsea - Manuel Harlan

Cue an elaborately silly plan to scupper the deal which involves him heading north and disguising himself as said shifty interloper. Confusion occurs in triplicate because his frustrated fiancée Finty (“editor of the finest online-only lifestyle magazine in south-west London”) and his doting, globe-trotting best buddy Charlton (shades of Rory Stewart…) have the same idea.

You could argue that, like its superfluous anti-hero, the piece dabbles intellectually rather than fully dissects its subject, especially as it mock-floats the virtues of Communism, mainly through Tug’s resolutely Leninist-loving, cake-baking house-keeper (Amy Booth-Steel, superb). But through laughter and unexpected invitations to empathy, it valuably wrestles with the state we’re in, depicting, in Tug’s final mate-lessness, a social divide that looks as unsustainable as it is undesirable.


Until Dec 16. Tickets: 020 7565 5000; royalcourttheatre.com

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.