Every year, the Fred Toppler Foundation on the Greek isle of Skios hosts the Great European House Party where guests come to study European culture for a long weekend culminating in a keynote address by a noted expert in something or another.
Until this year, when things go haywire. Oliver Fox, landing on Skios for a naughty weekend with a woman he’s known for five minutes, grabs Dr. Norman Wilfrid’s suitcase by mistake and identity on a whim. This leaves Dr. Wilfrid in a taxi to a villa on the other side of the island with nothing but his lecture notes for the Fred Toppler Keynote Address.
From there on, it’s nothing but mistaken identity, near misses, in-one-door-out-the-other, in-one-bed-out-the-other, prat falls, and laugh lines. The Toppler Foundation guests adore the younger, charming version of Dr. Wilfrid. The real Dr. Wilfrid falls into a herd of goats. Of course Fox’s weekend companion shows up, as does his long-suffering girlfriend. The Greeks can’t understand the Anglophones; the Anglophones can’t understand the Greeks. Hilarity ensues.
Michael Frayn wrote the side-splitting and perpetually-running play, Noises Off, so it is no surprise that he could take a similar formula for intricate farce, set it on a Greek Island, and come up with a winner. Skios is non-stop funny.
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NOTES
Skios counts as one of my books for my 2015 Mt. TBR Challenge.
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