Great Comic Expectations: One Man, Two Guvnors.

With a reputation for being “side-splittingly hilarious”, the National Theatre production of One Man, Two Guvnors, now touring Down Under, has a lot to live up to. Frank Hatherley talks to its Revival Director, who laughs a lot, and a leading lady, who is nursing a hangover from a film premiere.

One Man, Two Guvnors is a funny play. Indeed, according to the April 2011 reviews of the original National Theatre production, it’s “the funniest show to be seen in the land” and “the most side-splittingly hilarious play ever to be staged in London”. Now that’s a big call.

It’s a modern version, by Richard Bean, of Carlo Goldoni’s 250-year-oldcomic masterpiece The Servant of Two Masters. Set in pre-Beatles-60s seaside Brighton, the production features farce, pratfalls, music hall turns and audience participation.

After a UK tour, it transferred to London’s West End in November 2011 where it continues and looks like nesting at the Haymarket Royal for many a year. An award-winning Broadway production played from April to September last year. Now a new touring team under the NT brand is touring Australia and New Zealand.

But can they keep up the hilarity? My two phone calls to London assure me that this silly, energetic, cheerful show is in good comic hands.

My first call was Adam Penfold who is listed as Revival Director. He laughs at the title. “I started off as Assistant Director to Nicholas Hytner [the NT’s Director for the past 10 years]. As it’s become more and more successful I keep getting boosted up the chain a little. I’ve been Resident Director, then Associate Director, now I’m Revival Director.

“I love the show. I’m not bored of it. I must have seen it over 300 times and it still makes me laugh out loud. That’s got to be a good thing.”

I notice he also gets the credit as Choreographer. This time his laugh is a bit doubtful. “Yeees, I call it ‘Actors Movement’. There’s no dancing as such. When we started rehearsals Nick hadn’t quite realised what he was going to be doing with the play. Then he added a four-piece band that plays a pre-show concert, an interval concert and in the scene changes – and Nick wanted to introduce the cast into that, you know, a bit of music hall or variety. So we decided we needed a choreographer, and I’d done some so I sort of stepped up mid-rehearsals.”

It sounds like the show grew organically, I suggest.

“Oh, there was a completed first draft,” says Adam, “and Nick Hytner knows what he wants, he’s very strong. Richard Bean, the playwright was in the room, redrafting, adding jokes, open to suggestions. And we had a Comedy Director, Cal McCrystal, who specialises in physical comedy. He’s got a clowning background and worked with Sacha Baron Cohen on The Dictator and those films.

“He and Nick were an interesting partnership. They pulled against each other, but I think that tension is what has led the show to be as funny as it is.”

As Revival Director, does he have to take actors through their pratfall paces?

More hearty laughs. “I do, yes. In the play there’s an old waiter who has to fall down a lot. For the auditions, we make each actor come in and, once he’s read a bit of the script with us, we ask him to improvise. We set up a simple task, such as ‘please could you move this chair from that side of the audition room to the other’, and they’re allowed to do whatever they want. Of course they go way over the top, throwing the chair, falling over the chair, falling over themselves, falling over us – trying to make the best comedy impression that they can.”

Adam led the way on Broadway, casting the American half of the company, rehearsing them before Hytner arrived for a massive six-hour technical rehearsal. “That was fun,” he says, in a way that let’s you know it wasn’t fun at all. How did he prepare the American actors to play in this essentially English style of broad comedy?

“They had a list of DVDs to research in advance, including Faulty Towers, some Carry On films, Brighton Rock. We didn’t have to change much in the script. We changed ‘rozzers’ to ‘coppers’, and dropped some dialogue about The Arsenal Football Club.”

I wonder how Down Under audiences will go for it?

“You and me both,” he says. “It’ll be fascinating. We weren’t sure if the Americans would. The Americans did.”

**

My next cheerful call is to cast member Kellie Shirley, though it doesn’t start too well. She groans when I ring at the appointed hour. “I’ve literally, literally just woken up,” she murmurs.

“I know it sounds a bit grand, but I had the premiere of a film I was in last night and – erm – I had lots of champagne. So I’ve just literally woken up, but I’m ready and raring to go.”

Kellie’s new movie turns out to be — amazingly! — Run For Your Wife, based on a long-running (9 years) West End farce from the 1980s. Though writer/director Ray Cooney is now in his personal 80s, he had gathered the budget plus a long list of British personalities to play walk-ons.

“It took him 20 years to get the backing. It’s really been a labour of love. I play a dumb blonde,” she adds happily. Her accent is delightfully cockney.

Later I discover that Kellie’s trip down last night’s red carpet featured a wet-weather costume malfunction that has put her on the front cover of several tabloid national newspapers. The paparazzi love her. She’s been a popular soap star in the UK, having played in over 200 episodes of the perennial EastEnders.

Kellie’s already done the UK tour of One Man, Two Guvnors and is clearly thrilled to be part of the current World Tour.

“I’m in my element,” she says. “It’s such a funny play. I play a dumb blonde – type casting there – called Pauline, and it’s her engagement party, and beforehand she was due to get married to this East End gangster but then she falls in love with this actor called Alan and then she gets engaged to him. It’s a convoluted love triangle. It all goes tits up and that’s when the farce really starts happening.”

She confirms the amount of research the new cast had to do.

“It was a big list we had to be up to speed with before we started rehearsals. We watched The Krays, we watched some old Ken Loach films of the 60s, we specially watched Carry On films – because our production is in the style of the Carry Ons.

“I love my character, I love the cast, we all get on really well, and I’m coming to Australia. I mean, it’s just amazing - I can’t wait!”

The NT tour of One Man, Two Guvnors plays Sydney 30 March – 11 May & Melbourne 17 May – 29 June.

Originally published in the March / April 2013 edition of Stage Whispers.

Images (from top): Owain Arthur (photographer: Johann Persson); Adam Penfold;  Amy Booth-Steel (as Dolly), Nick Caveliere (as Harry Dangle), Leon Williams (as Alan Dangle), Kellie Shirley (as Pauline) and Mark Monero (as Lloyd Boateng); Kellie Shirley (as Pauline), Rosie Wyatt (as Rachel Crabbe), and Amy Booth-Steel (as Dolly) & Kellie Shirley. Photographer: Tristram Kenton.