THE Play What I Wrote is both a dissection of double acts and a celebration of Morecambe and Wise.
Written by The Right Size comic coupling of Sean Foley and Hamish McColl in tandem with Eddie Braben, the chap what wrote little Ern's plays, the West End and Broadway hit is now in the hands of jocund actors Clive Hayward and Kim Wall.
Performing together for the first time on the play's latest tour but gelling like Superglue, they play Hayward & Wall, a double act in trouble after 12 years. Wall, the shorter, prickly one, has grown professionally jealous of Hayward, the tall one with the gags. He insists the partnership will continue only if they present the latest of his 72 unpublished plays, a French Revolution epic with a guest star.
Through a series of elaborate deceptions, Hayward and oleaginous producer David Pugh (one of a number of manic cameos for Andy Williams) dupe Wall into thinking the play will be presented with Sir Ian McKellen in the company. In reality, Hayward has signed up the comic duo for a Morecambe & Wise tribute, minus Sir Ian.
Hayward and the long-suffering Pugh must somehow keep up the pretence - Williams briefly transforming himself into Daryl Hannah, half woman, half kipper - and the delirious comedy then acquires a fifth gear with the arrival of a surprise guest. Last night, it was, glory be, Honor Blackman; later in the week a soap legend is promised and who knows who else.
Honor's role is to be subjected glamorously and good humouredly to humiliation and mockery at the hands of both Wall's hapless, innuendo-bedevilled script and the comic interjections of Hayward in playful Morecambe tradition.
The Play What I Wrote is at once a delightful nostalgic re-creation of Eric and Ernie's comic sunshine - you wish for even more of the old magic - and a smart post-modern analysis of the often complex chemistry and vulnerability of double acts. In a show of unalloyed joy, the happy conclusion finds Hayward and Wall abed, just like Morecambe & Wise, affirming why each needs the other.
Box office: 0870 606 3590
Updated: 10:20 Tuesday, February 22, 2005
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