Sublime and ridiculous – this verbal and physical comedy is a fine fit with Marx's MO

Groucho Marx, the epitome of the fast-talking Jewish funny man, and TS Eliot, lionised as the preeminent modernist poet and never out of fashion, may seem unlikely lunch buddies. It’s well documented, though, that they became pen pals thanks to a fan letter the poet, known for his antisemitic tendencies, sent to the man with the moustache and eyebrows painted on to enhance his semitic looks.

I was brought up on the Marx Brothers. My father adored their wild humour, veering from slapstick to verbal to musical or all three at once. We studied TS Eliot at school. I really got them both: the irreverence of the comedic brothers and the poet's eloquent bleakness. So I knew Frank McGuinness’s comedy (subtly directed by Loveday Ingram) was going to speak to me. Would the comic and the poet find new fans though?

I laughed out loud as my idols led each other a merry dance – literally. Eliot, played with exquisite sangfroid by Greg Hicks, warms into joining a wild, though expertly choreographed Charleston (by David Bolger) with Ian Bartholomew’s witty Marx, who in turn matches the poet’s elegance. The dance, spot on of course for 1922, is led by Ingrid Craigie’s commanding, immaculately coiffed and gowned restaurant Proprietor, as successive bottles of Champagne are cracked open at the boozy lunch over which she presides.

The Proprietor opens the surreal drama on a restaurant set (designed by Adam Wilshire), where we see only a table laid for two against a mysterious night sky backdrop. At her opening words, "Earth, lie lightly / Bones, rest quietly / But now – rise, rise", a flash of light reveals Marx and Eliot at the table, launching into a quickfire dialogue about – what else? – the soup. Chicken soup? Or duck soup, as the eponymous Marx Brothers film has it?

The pair bond over arguing the toss on the soup, on the merits of Yiddish, Greta Garbo, wine and complimenting each other. Marx admires Eliot’s writing and he, in turn, the Brothers’ films, "so fast, so funny" and "much faster, much funnier" than Shakespeare. "Spare me from his clowns!" exclaims Eliot, who admits to admiring vulgarity – "rudeness, if you like." Marx replies: "I’ve never stopped being rude." "Good, then you won’t stop being funny," rejoins Eliot.

Their references range from Houdini to King Lear. They quote The Wasteland, but equally they delight in singing along to Marie Lloyd’s wistful ‘The Boy I Love is Up in the Gallery’ as well as the more raucous ‘Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way’. The joie de vivre is infectious as Craigie’s Proprietor joins in both. In fact, there is an elegiac feel that is heightened as the Proprietor, alone onstage again as the lights fade, repeats her opening words with an addition that takes viewers back to the end of the of the universe. "No, not extinct yet. Soon, soon. All be there soon. Bones rest quietly…"

I guess this is a Marmite show that might divide audiences. There was plenty of laughter at the performance I saw. I wonder if it isn’t also generational, as my own children know little of Marx or Eliot. Will Dinner with Groucho inspire new audiences to check them out? I hope so as, for me, it was 75 minutes of pure delight.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Ros Kavanagh

Dinner with Groucho runs until Saturday 10 December. 7.30pm, 3pm (Wed & Sat only). £10-£28, £18-£26 concs. Arcola Theatre, E8 3DL. arcolatheatre.com