#Hurrah for old nosey professional#

#Hurrah for old nosey professional#

In between ripping one another apart they turn on Yvan, whose life is tricky enough already, between professional failure (вЂњDoes any man wake up every morning looking forward to selling expandable document walletsвЂќ) and a wedding involving warring stepmothers, an affronted mother and a demanding fiancГ©e. The third of the old-pals trio, Yvan, tries to mediate between them. Marc laughs and says it is shit, and seems oddly affronted by SergeвЂ™s purchase this opens an unexpected vein of vulnerability in Serge. He shows it to Marc, an aero engineer as stubbornly wary of modernism and art-that-needs-explaining as our own dear Michael Gove (very topical, lucky Old Vic!). Except he says it isnвЂ™t white, itвЂ™s subtler than that, an important work by a contemporary artist. The trigger is when Serge, a prosperous doctor, spends 100,000 euros on an apparently blank white painting. The beauty of this piece is that the unsayable things are well and truly said, by all three characters, as deep chasms open. Hang out together long enough in empty breeziness, and the odds are there will be dangerous things unsaid. ART made her name internationally, and for Matthew Warchus to revive it at the end of a chippy 2016, just when we need to wince, laugh, and reflect on the perils and underlying disagreements in any friendship. She did both: the French actor-novelist-playwright sees far enough into the cracks in human confidence to illuminate both absurdity and pathos. When Yasmina Reza won an Olivier for best comedy, she joked вЂњI thought I had written a tragedyвЂќ. SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE FORGET THEMSELVESвЂ¦.