Site-specific plays are not anything out of the ordinary these days, but what is unusual is to have a play performed in the location where it is set, about a real person who used to frequent that location. But The Coach & Horses pub in Soho is not only the venue for Keith Waterhouse’s play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, but also the location where Jeffrey liked to spend most of his time.
The premise of the play is very simple. Having had one too many, Jeffrey Bernard (Robert Bathurst) has fallen asleep in the gents’ loo of the Coach & Horses pub. Unfortunately, neither Norman, the landlord, nor anyone else realised, and so he woke up to find himself locked in the pub all alone. So, Jeffrey does what any normal person in this predicament wouldn’t. Helps himself to the contents of the vodka bottle and reminisces on his life. Over the course of roughly an hour, Bathurst regales us with stories from Jeffrey’s life, the highs and the lows. From being expelled from naval college to the great pussycat handicap race, it’s all there.
And, the great thing is, it’s pretty much all true. Jeffrey Bernard was a real person. A journalist, in fact, best known for his weekly column “Low Life” in The Spectator magazine, along with being Private Eye’s racing correspondent. But it is not his journalism that keeps his name alive today. He frequently missed deadlines to submit his column, at which the Spectator would put the words “Jeffrey Bernard is unwell” instead of the expected column. No, his journalism isn’t his claim to fame. Instead, it is his notorious life, mainly as a customer in the Coach & Horses, that is celebrated, not only in this play but in some of the cartoons that adorn the walls of the Coach & Horses. This really is Jeffrey’s pub, and Robert Bathurst portrays the old sot with exactly the style and grace. Jeffrey could be a tragic figure given the life he led, but no, Keith Waterhouse’s words – adapted by Director James Hillier – give us a portrait of a man who, no matter what happened to him, lived life to the full and ultimately enjoyed every minute of it.
As did I. At first, I was worried about how the audience would be able to see – this isn’t the biggest pub in London – but seated or standing, everyone had a good view as Bathurst wandered hither and thither. In front of the bar, behind the bar – usually topping up his glass – or just sitting in the middle of us, giving us another anecdote from Jeff’s life. Drunk but never annoyingly so, Bathurst delivers a superb monologue that meanders its way through life, with at times some quite profound observations. I particularly liked his take on the countryside, which so matches my own dislike of green fields and trees all over the place. From the start, when he comes crashing into the bar, until the final moment when Norma arrives to rescue him, this is a performance of the highest order.
After the show finished, I spoke with the couple sitting at my table who had travelled down that day specifically to see the show and asked them if it had been worth it. Their reply was an enthusiastic yes, and I had to agree with them.
By the way, if the idea of someone being a few over the eight and falling asleep in a pub toilet, then getting locked in sounds a tad improbable, well, it happened a few years ago – when he was much younger and carefree – to a certain theatrical reviewer with the initials TE.
Review by Terry Eastham
Meet Jeffrey Bernard… a notorious and feckless Soho face. A journalist who doesn’t know the meaning of the word deadline and would much rather be drinking vodka on the rocks in his favourite Soho watering holes. A throwback of a man who after four marriages and a life of non-stop carousing is starting to feel a touch jaded. Having fallen asleep in the Gents and waking up in the middle of the night inside the legendary Coach and Horses on Greek Street, Jeffrey Bernard is not a man to waste the deserted hours ahead of him before Norman the landlord opens up again in the morning.
Robert Bathurst – Jeffrey Bernard
Keith Waterhouse (1929-2009) – Playwright
James Hillier – Director
Max Pappenheim – Sound Designer
Defibrillator and M. Green Productions present
JEFFREY BERNARD IS UNWELL
The Coach & Horses, 29 Greek Street, London W1D 5DH
1 to 23 March 2026 (selected dates)
