The Odd Couple

The Odd Couple drops a fastidious, freshly separated man into the chaotic apartment of his slobbish best friend, and watches the friendship buckle. Felix Ungar cleans, cooks and sulks; Oscar Madison leaves sandwiches to fossilise under the sofa. Two men who cannot live apart discover they may not survive living together.

The setup is a weekly poker night among divorced and semi-divorced friends. When Felix turns up wrecked by the end of his marriage, Oscar takes him in out of loyalty. What follows is a slow collision of temperaments: coasters against cigar ash, a strict dinner schedule against a fridge of unidentifiable leftovers. The comedy sharpens as each man's habits start to look less like quirks and more like the reasons they were left.

Neil Simon wrote the play in 1965, and it remains among his most frequently staged. The original production, directed by Mike Nichols, ran for 964 performances and took Tony Awards for its writing, its direction and its leading performance. Simon later wrote a companion version with the central pair reconceived as women, and the premise has been adapted for screen more than once.

The pleasure is in the writing's precision: jokes built out of character rather than gags, and long comic runs that pay off three scenes later. Underneath the laughter sits something plainer about loneliness, male friendship and the difficulty of being tolerated. The play is funny and quietly sad in the same breath, which is why it has outlasted its era.

It rewards anyone who likes comedy with people underneath it, and audiences who enjoy watching two actors work a room. Live, the timing is everything: the pauses, the slow burns and the poker table's running commentary land harder with a crowd around them.