Actor Ian Hallard readily admits he’d always wanted to play one of the girls from Swedish supergroup ABBA, and since no scripts containing his most coveted role were forthcoming, he wrote one of his own. And even got his husband Mark Gatiss to direct.

The Way Old Friends Do (let’s call it TWOFD from now on) enables Hallard to don wig, make-up, satin jumpsuit and platforms to play blonde singer Agnetha, but there’s much more to this lively, occasionally sentimental but more often laugh-out-loud, comedy-drama than a musical drag act. Not that the latter is to be sniffed at – the image of James Bradshaw cavorting as Frida in an orange leotard will live long in the memory, for all the wrong reasons – but TWOFD is definitely a play rather than a musical, and the dressing up is mostly, well, dressing.

The drama is really about friendship, trust, desire and navigating life as a largely closet bisexual even though you’d managed to out yourself as an ABBA fan while a teenager when they were seriously uncool. That’s Hallard’s character Peter, who grew up in Birmingham alongside schoolfriend Edward (the show-stealing Bradshaw) in the mid-80s and is reunited with him 30 years later courtesy of a dating app.

Getting over their initial discomfort – and the complete lack of contact during the intervening decades – the duo rekindle their friendship and decide to form the world’s first ABBA drag tribute act to help out theatre producer Sally (Donna Berlin) after she’s hit with a cancellation. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

Hyper-talking Jodie (squeaky-voiced Rose Shalloo) and Mrs Campbell (understudy Tariyé Peterside, who hams it up perfectly) fill out the band as Bjorn and Benny, and their one-off gig is such a success they end up playing pub and club venues across the Midlands. But their perfect world soon comes Under Attack (ahem), as illness (almost certainly Covid), IVF heartache, online abuse, an emotional coming out and unlikely love (rat) interest mean it’s SOS time all round.

Covering so many issues felt a bit like box-ticking but the likeable characters undeniably connected with the audience and mostly carried it off, with a couple of dramatic moments even earning audible intakes of breath. The overriding sound in the Rep’s Studio theatre was of laughter though, and while the bawdy, drag act-style humour wasn’t always to my taste, it was impossible not to get carried along for the ride and crack a few smiles along the way.

That journey – played out on Janet Bird’s terrific turntable set – will also tick boxes for die-hard ABBA afficionados, with an array of Easter Egg-style minutiae littered throughout the script and a finale that celebrates the ageing band’s recent reunion almost as much as that of the protagonists. In this show happy endings are the Name Of The Game – or is that dame – after all.

4 stars

Reviewed by Steve Adams at The Rep on Wednesday 22 February. The show continues at the theatre until 4 March.