I’m inclined to Present Kline with my approval: PATRICK MARMION reviews Present Laughter 

Present Laughter (Broadway HD – online and via app)

Rating:

Verdict: Lots of laughter present

Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade (stream.theatre)

Rating:

Verdict: Soft-focused eulogy

Waiting For Obama (stream.theatre, Spotify) 

Rating:

Verdict: Guns, not roses 

As Oscar Wilde cheekily suggested, we Brits have everything in common with America nowadays ‘except, of course, language’.

I was therefore a little worried that Kevin Kline might drive a three-wheeled wagon through Noel Coward’s quintessentially English comedy Present Laughter.

Even so, I couldn’t resist having a look at Kline’s 2017 production of the play, in a live recording available on Broadway HD, an internet platform packed with tasty American shows and musicals.

As it happens, I had nothing to fear. From the moment he provided the correct, Cowardian pronunciation of ‘illusion’ (three carefully separated syllables — ‘ill-you-shun’), I knew I was in safe hands.

I was therefore a little worried that Kevin Kline might drive a three-wheeled wagon through Noel Coward's quintessentially English comedy Present Laughter. As it happens, I had nothing to fear. Pictured: Kevin Kline as Garry Essendine

I was therefore a little worried that Kevin Kline might drive a three-wheeled wagon through Noel Coward’s quintessentially English comedy Present Laughter. As it happens, I had nothing to fear. Pictured: Kevin Kline as Garry Essendine

Kline is a consummate comedian in the role of Garry Essendine — Coward's comic self-portrait of a vain, womanising thesp

Kline is a consummate comedian in the role of Garry Essendine — Coward’s comic self-portrait of a vain, womanising thesp

Kline is a consummate comedian in the role of Garry Essendine — Coward’s comic self-portrait of a vain, womanising thesp.

He is more than a match for Andrew Scott’s Olivier award-winning turn in the role at the Old Vic two years ago.

Kline may be 73 but blithely passes himself off as 45. He adds plenty of physical comedy to Coward’s repartee, getting the belt of his dressing gown caught round a banister, doing press-ups during a love scene and bashing his head on a swing door. Mercifully, this doesn’t bulldoze Essendine’s acidic one-liners or lofty histrionics.

Kline may be 73 but blithely passes himself off as 45. He adds plenty of physical comedy to Coward's repartee, getting the belt of his dressing gown caught round a banister, doing press-ups during a love scene and bashing his head on a swing door

Kline may be 73 but blithely passes himself off as 45. He adds plenty of physical comedy to Coward’s repartee, getting the belt of his dressing gown caught round a banister, doing press-ups during a love scene and bashing his head on a swing door

He also rolls over like a puppy for his ex-wife (Kate Burton), who has the practical manner of a Bavarian hill-walker.

And as a bejewelled predatory beauty, Cobie Smulders of The Avengers smoulders (sorry!), even if her cut-glass accent sometimes ditches in the mid-Atlantic.

The other character that comes off beautifully is the handsome stage set itself, which is a model of Art Deco bohemian chic. With a camera giving us a ringside seat (on a chaise longue), Present Laughter is a visual treat, too.

By contrast, two new plays on stream.theatre illustrate how the U.S. has become bitterly divided. One is Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade, a soft-focused account of the last days of JFK’s brother before he was assassinated as he campaigned to be the Democrat nominee for the White House in 1968. The resonance with today is obvious, as Kennedy laments war, poverty, environmental destruction and racism.

Actor-writer David Arrow captures boyish Bobby down to the cute curl on his tumbling fringe.

Kennedy: Bobby's Last Crusade, a soft-focused account of the last days of JFK's brother before he was assassinated as he campaigned to be the Democrat nominee for the White House in 1968

Kennedy: Bobby’s Last Crusade, a soft-focused account of the last days of JFK’s brother before he was assassinated as he campaigned to be the Democrat nominee for the White House in 1968

Actor-writer David Arrow captures boyish Bobby down to the cute curl on his tumbling fringe

Actor-writer David Arrow captures boyish Bobby down to the cute curl on his tumbling fringe

His voice quivers with sincerity; his melancholic gaze makes him look sorry to be smiling. Arrow’s one-man portrait, set amid the bunting of a convention room, exposes Bobby as a benign but slightly constipated loner, fond of quoting from antiquity.

Waiting For Obama, meanwhile, is a staged reading of a radio play that takes on America’s continuing row over gun control. Also available on Spotify, it imagines the 44th President visiting a family in Colorado in a campaign to take back the firearms held in 65 million homes across the U.S.

He is not welcomed by grandpop Hank, a bumper-sticker thinker who takes delight in warning him he’ll have to prise his AR15 assault rifle ‘from my cold, dead hands’.

With gunfire heard between scenes, journalist John Moore’s play captures the political and social logjam of a society that can’t even agree on its constitution.

Yet there’s also a sweetness to a story that puts its faith in a humanity trampled underfoot by the rush to righteousness.

LOG ON FOR VIRTUAL FUN 

 London’s Southwark Playhouse has been impressively resilient over the past year. This week and next they’re streaming two shows with the potential to become cult hits. 

Public Domain (HHHII) is an alarming portrait of our way of life, online, which sets social media soundbites to electronic music in a jittery 60-minute video. 

It may sound like one strictly for younger readers, but I was impressed by actor-writers Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke. 

There’s a bit too much on Mark Zuckerberg and his missus, but this is an ingenious piece of work. It covers the airhead mantras of digital influencers, the misery endured by those who moderate online slurry, and the loneliness of souls reaching out in hope and desperation. 

The Fabulist Fox Sister (2 stars) is the story of U.S. spiritualist and self-confessed fake medium Kate Fox, looking back on her life from the year of her death, in 1892. 

Michael Conley, as Fox, camps it up in a long black dress, with a severe black wig. There are some Tom Lehrerish songs. But it would all seem so much cleverer without the gratuitous swearing that makes Kate sound merely snide. 

Go to southwarkplayhouse.co.uk