THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE AT THE ARTS THEATRE
THOM TUCK AND DENNIS HERDMAN IN THE LEAD ROLES
If there is a post pandemic play, this is definitely it. The production company throw everything they have at this sparkling, crowded celebration of the kind of comedy – that paradoxically -we shall never see again. The show is first and foremost a super-energetic turbo- charged set-up for the legend that was Morecambe and Wise – but breaks free to add much more : the three performers give it all they’ve got, from Carmen Miranda- style exotic cha-cha –cha dance sequences ( glorious but too short for me) to a Bing Crosby-esque, Cole Porter-style seascape where both Herdman and Tuck sing Moonlight becomes You very convincingly. But the genre is mixed. The song is addressed to a Kenny Everett re-make- a bearded actor, Mitesh Soni as Scarlett Johanssen in a set of huge false breasts with plenty of crotch flashing knockabout comedic nonsense. Just like Kenny of old. Grotesque but theatrically mighty impressive, as a woman I truly disliked this return to the kind of Dick Emery comedy quasi- misogyny of yester- years. The only regular appearances in the show are men, or men dressed as parodies of women. MItesh Soni as the put-upon ( in every bawdy sense) fall guy has a trope of script where he remembers his old mother’s wish that he play the accordion. This scene intensifies for comic effect but through such contortions of ageist parody we ended up with a gruesome vision of the old mother as a Psycho style horror exhibit..
I don’t think I have ever seen a play with so many props. they just keep coming with inventive brilliance. The sets are superb. They form almost a fourth character- especially the shakey re-stage of a sixties flat where pictures fall off the walls and Eric and Ernie, Herdman and Tuck snuggle cozily in bed together.
Life is all as it was once back in the 1970s where no one joked about two adult men sharing a bed, Father Ted and Assistant Dougal in later years made that trope part of the comedy a centerpiece for their hugely successful series.
The Play What I Wrote has clearly changed over the years and now propels itself through a manically changing , unconnected sequence of hyper- fast mini sketches and a welter of fast gags. It all hints at Morecambe and Wise but is a vehicle for the Herdman and Tuck to show us what a modern duo can make of it. Both are super talented, so the answer to that is, quite a lot. The script is now weirdly muddled. Hardly a surprise as it began with Eddie Braben’s original homage to the famous duo and picked up some eye watering bawdy ‘business’ on its way to rampant success.
Other features have modified. There is more blatant sexual reference in this show – I found the sex sequences between Thom Tuck (wonderfully dynamic throughout-) and straight man Miteshi Soni , a bit of a shock . We fast -forwarded from the times where nearly thirty million family members watched The Morecambe and Wise Christmas special without a blush or even a shimmer of discomfort - to a sexual pantomime unseen in those innocent days. Dennis Herdman’s performance was an exhausting, tasking romp .It echoed the relentless boom of Eric Morecambe’s voice – it grated after a while as it was meant to- but he brought a youthful sexy, athletic dancer’s precision, a splendid physicality that Eric, fast on his feet as he was, never could have mastered.
The show climaxed – yes I’m at it now – with a reprise of the Scarlet Pimple, Thom/Ernie’s masterpiece. And I did enjoy his analysis of why he got no laughs. And – mystery guest appearance notwithstanding, we at last reached the end of this amazingly provisioned tour de force with a true representation of Eric and Ernie in full evening dress now back in 1977 singing - ‘Bring Me Sunshine’. It brought the house down.
