Call it poetic justice or irony; I thought it was only fitting that the sparklingly fresh sketch comedy Dreaming with Dalí managed to stir up as much controversy as it did even before its premiere. "It with great sadness and regret that I have to announce that we have had to cancel tonights (sic) showing of Dreaming with Dalí," wrote debutante Co-Director and writer Alexander Ilija Coles on the Facebook page, little more than an hour before the planned curtain-up. In the memorable, dare I say it, slightly cocky words of the writer we were told: "ambition has its drawbacks". Of course, the renowned subject of the play relished talking about himself as well. Ilija Coles’s script brings to life the ridiculous proportions of Dali; the surrealist genius, as he portrayed himself to the world: "Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí". 

The scene opens with a frustrated Dalí (Gus Mitchell) who is worried his "creative insanity seems to be faltering". In a dream, he is told that the only way he can recover the genius of his earlier works is to wade through (exactly) three layers of his subconscious mind, aided by the omnipresent voice of Freud, played by the versatile Harrison MacNeill. Francesco Anselmetti’s superb soundtrack is masterfully interwoven with the action: live recordings of the enigmatic artist himself cut across Mitchell’s eerily resonant guttural refrains of the name ‘Dalí’, ‘Dalí’ and there is the jarring sound of a rocket take-off as Mitchell prepares his phallic projectile that will launch him into his unconscious. In each layer he finds a surrealist object he is yet to conceive of, a jolting conjunction of unlikely things which signify an inchoate desire. Mitchell approaches the dexterity of Charlie Chaplin in the way he fleshes out the presence of the tortured artist. He is the flâneur: bumbling and effeminate with a cane in hand, now passionately leading his hilariously suggestive rhinoceros (Riss Obolensky) in a sultry tango and then the wounded artist, pacing up and down in a venomous rant against, his fellow surrealist, Magritte’s popular obsession with Belgian hats.

Elinor Lipman plays with skill the traumatised and Dalí's long-suffering wife, Gala, and shows particularly consummate timing in the Freudian interrogation episode. The Freudian voice over analyses her reasons for staying with the self-confessed "madman" and naturally the ripe ground of psychoanalytical jargon, from penis envy to the Electra complex, is exploited to devastatingly hilarious effect.  But the truth is that the script is rarely that funny. You know you're scraping the barrel when those perennial favourites of sketch shows, twentieth century fascist dictators, make their appearance. While Dalí did negotiate a metamorphosis between militant Troskyist to Catholic supporter of General Franco in the Spanish Civil War, the script never quite manages to rise above anodyne slapstick revolving around gratuitous thrusting (between said dictators) and the inevitable moustache comparisons. More importantly, the narrative is never quite complex or compelling enough to carry the plot forward; instead it fizzles out disappointingly at 45 minutes.  I did not understand the choice to simplify Gala’s character from the historical figure who is an enigmatic femme fatale, ten years the senior of Dalí, former wife to his surrealist friend and serial philanderer into the weary victim of his excesses. A little more nuance in her character would have supplied new comedic material as well as added a spark to their relationship.

 Dreaming with Dalí is fresh, flippant and for the most part rather charming, but exhausts its clever premise too quickly to leave a lasting impression.