Comedy nowadays has to be crude and shocking to make people laugh. Only those making jokes about risqué topics or making politically incorrect statements seem to have any success. Well, that’s what the Daily Mail tells us anyway. In reality, there seems to be a rise in homely middle class laughs on our screens. The popularity of Miranda, for instance, perhaps displays that while sailing close to the wind in comedy may be the fastest route to laughs, people sometimes yearn for something more.

If you agree with this opinion then Alarms and Excursions may be just the show for you. Describing itself as a collection of eight plays examining what’s wrong with modern technology, I expected an evening of gentle laughs at the havoc wreaked by mobile phones. What I saw was a rather odd assortment of sketches and observations, most of them with nothing to do with technology at all.

The opening short gets the message across: Look! Technology sometimes makes things more difficult! But by the end of the show the characters on stage are running about, desperately in need of a mobile phone. It doesn’t all concern technology, either, it’s more an exploration of middle class long-time married couples and their lives ten or so years ago. Comedy doesn’t need to be edgy but this felt extremely dated.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t funny, quite the opposite. I giggled throughout and enjoyed many of the observations, but felt isolated by much of it because there was nothing I could relate to. Whether or not it’s a fair criticism (I imagine many 50-somethings fail to see the appeal of Russell Howard, for instance) it’s how I felt. There was nothing I could identify with. I don’t have a long-suffering husband with any idiosyncrasies to laugh about.

The four performers did well, switching between the various characters convincingly and displaying a good knowledge of comic timing. All worked well together and displayed the professionalism you’d expect from such seasoned performers. Complementing the action is a clever set, with props and sliding panels moving to reveal new scenes and setting. Not overly complicated, it let the actors shine.

Alarms and Excursions was nice; that’s its main problem. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t brilliant either. All in all, it filled an enjoyable enough evening. The only way I can think to describe it is beige: inoffensive, pleasant but not altogether interesting. And sometimes it’s nice to add a splash of colour.

Until Sat 30th July at The Richmond Theatre