Review: Eila, Rampe ja suolaparta

A warm-hearted comedy about façade maintenance and misunderstandings.

Sinikka Nopola is known for her beloved children’s books, of course, but also for her works spiced up with excellent laconic Häme humour, such as Ei tehrä här ny numeroo and the Eila ja Rampe series. For the second time, Heidi Herala and Pertti Koivula will be seen as Eilana and Rampe on the Arena stage of the Helsinki City Theatre, for whom the characters fit like a custom-made suit. This time, the adventure is directed by Katja Krohn.

Mystical Salt Beard

At the heart of the fun is Eila and Rampe’s mold house problem, which, however, turns out to be a relatively harmless salt beard, i.e. lime powder. It is secreted from time to time due to the effect of lime on damp rooms.

However, the timing for the humidity measurement is the worst possible: Eila and Rampe are visited by rich and respected family friends from Sweden, architect cousin Staffa (Seppo Halttunen) and his spiritualized and sensitive wife Birgitta (Tiina Pirhonen).

A crack appears in the petty-bourgeois façade when Tuomas Uusitalo , a moisture meter who is precise, rough and straightforward about his schedule, forces his way in.

And so begins a sad game of doors, when Eila and Rampe try to hide the moisture meter and at the same time keep up a hollow small talk with the guests. The climax of despair is reached when guests ask for a place to stay for a longer period of time, specifically in the familiar guest room in the basement! An embarrassing clash ensues.

Eroticism of misunderstandings

Nopola has written funny and typical farcical misunderstanding dialogue. While Uusitalo uses cleverly ambiguous phrases about the work of a moisture meter, Halttunen and Pirhonen interpret them as something completely different. “yes, these middle-aged structures need honing from time to time…” One misunderstanding leads to another, and in the end, the sexual revolution is coming out of the closets with a crackle. The humour under the navel bites in the stands.

Pokka holds

In the advance information and the script, the connections to the popular British series Pokka pitä (Keeping Up Appearances) are openly acknowledged. It is not a copy, but a sympathetic Finnishization. Herala gets the same recognizability in Eila that can be found in the character Hyacinth in the TV series. Koivula follows from the sidelines in the same way, but more relaxed than his British brother. The couple stylizes together excellently.

Towards the end, the correction of misunderstandings and various relationship investigations threaten to drag on too long, but at the same time, they humanize the whole. Here we can see exactly what Neil Hardwick thinks is the difference between comedy and farce: comedy is warm, but farce is cold and calculatedly mechanical. Nopola’s work is clearly a warm-hearted comedy. After all, a genuine and humane encounter is much more valuable than bolstering statuses.

You leave the arena in good spirits.