In my senior year at college, a close friend had fallen in love with a British man who visited America for the first time. While we went to class, he watched American game shows on the telly and later remarked about THREE (!) cars being given away on an episode of The Price is Right. Apparently in England, that’s not exactly how game shows work. After they married, I flew across the pond and experienced the stark contrast. A fairly difficult trivia show was on television and the winning prize was announced: “a one way ticket to France, find your own way back.” I howled. I laughed much harder recalling that moment than I did anytime during “The Nap.”
Back in the 1980’s there were only a handful of channels to watch on TV. A snooker tournament dominated the airwaves when I visited the now married couple. Hours and hours of snooker. The commentary was like watching golf without the pretty views. So I thought I would get a tremendous kick out of The Nap which concerns itself with a snooker championship and an assortment of colorful characters. In addition, Richard Bean previously wrote the hilarious One Man, Two Guvnors which justifiably made James Corden a star here.
Although it received some strong reviews in London, The Nap is a fairly dull affair, never as witty or funny as it thinks it is. Dylan Spokes (a fine Ben Schnetzer) enters the World Snooker Championship and the police are trying to root out a gambling syndicate threatening to ruin the sport. His dad offers him a shrimp sandwich despite the fact that he is vegetarian and doesn’t eat anything with brains. His mom is the white trash type with slimy boyfriend. The female police officer is sexy. His agent is transgendered and frequently spouts malapropisms that are intermittently clever. She has a “peanut analogy.” Will you chuckle a few times? Yes, but not nearly enough.
The cast was uniformly good in their roles. The set design is excellent with elaborate scene changes from snooker hall to Dylan’s bedroom to the World Championship table. The actual tournament playing rounds are by far the most entertaining with droll television commentary adding to the snooker tension. As directed by Daniel Sullivan, The Nap never sinks the ball into a pocket called comedy. I believe the fault, however, lies largely in a play with far too many scratches to be recommended.