The British press review Sexual Perversity in Chicago, starring Matthew Perry and Minnie Driver.

The play runs until 2 August

The Guardian

The four actors are perfectly matched in Lindsay Posner's production. Matthew Perry and Kelly Reilly as the attractive lovers move convincingly from mutual sexual curiosity to Strindbergian loathing. But it is their friends who are the real oddballs. Hank Azaria's hilariously horrible Bernie exists in a state of permanent incandescence, while Minnie Driver's quietly dominating Joan extends her control-freakery from the schoolroom to the living-room.

The Independent

It's a strange thing to say of a regular on The Simpsons, but Azaria shows no talent for comedy. His Bernard, whose sex life is straight from the readers' page of a top-shelf magazine but who strikes out when he tries to pick up a real live girl, has a peculiar, nasal voice, a choppy delivery and terrible timing. He and Perry seem to hold themselves at a distance from their characters. Driver, as an embittered kindergarten teacher, is drab.

The Daily Telegraph

Perry proves that he is very good at aw-shucks smiles and circle-mouthed expressions of perplexity. He can also do quite funny things with his chin. That, unfortunately, is about the extent of his repertoire, and when he's required to turn emotionally violent at the end of the affair, before joining his vile friend Bernard in mindless foul-mouthed leching, he seems all at sea. I have rarely heard the c-word more apologetically delivered.

The Daily Mail

The best acting is by the second leads, Hanz Azaria as Bernard, Danny's buddy, a boastful sexual fantasist, and the brilliant Kelly Reilly as Deb, whom Danny beds in a striking nearly nude scene. Are you a lesbian, he asks her, for physical preference or political belief?

This gormless inquiry typifies the dated shock value of the writing and also the callow provenance of a script composed like the sort of Chicago revue that made the names of Chevy Chase and John Belushi.

The Times

If you're hoping to see the Minnie Driver and Matthew Perry Show at the Comedy, save your cash. The first of these chic stars has the smallest, least-rewardiing role in David Mamet's play, and the second spends a lot of Lindsay Posner's production being baffled, dim and so chunkily unglamorous you'd find a Stonehenge menhir sexier.