Boys Will Be Boys review – cross-dressed scoffing

There is a neglected theatrical treasure in Boys Will Be Boys. While its building is being revamped, the Bush theatre has taken to the surrounding streets. For its latest production, with Headlong, it has moved into a chandeliered, gilded haven. The Edwardian Bush Hall, now used for parties and conferences, is a gorgeous place for a show.

There is also a lovely talent at the centre of the evening. Kirsty Bushell, who acts as commère to this cabaret with a play inside it, struts and sashays. She stretches out on top of a piano to give throaty renditions, not least of Etta James’s I’d Rather Go Blind. She is sultry, contemptuous and desperate.

The all-female cast, directed by Amy Hodge, is attracting an almost entirely female audience. It’s a pity that, despite good intentions, Melissa Bubnic’s play does not often rise above the level of hen-night entertainment. She sets out to show the depths to which women sink in order to survive in a “man’s world”: they turn into whores or pretend to be men. But the world she has chosen for derision is the City, a place so extensively satirised that this cross-dressed scoffing, with its parody men, looks feeble though toilet-tongued. It’s like watching Chris Evans trying to be Jeremy Clarkson. A flailing exaggeration imitating a nightmare.

• At Bush Hall, London until 30 July