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‘Pete and Dud’ in comedians’ Limboland |
Comics in hell
GOODBYE
Leicester Square Theatre
THIS production of Goodbye could be reduced to the Sartrean axiom: Hell is other comics.
Lucifer’s emissary, the camp Carry-On star, Charlie Hawtrey, is asked by a flabbergasted Dudley Moore: “What, no torturing [in hell]?”
“Oh, yes,” replies Charlie. “The entertainment’s bloody awful!”
The gags come fast and furious in Johnny Hansler and Clive Greenwood’s hilarious and often moving piece.
Its central theme is the much-troubled relationship between the British comedy partnership of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Political satire was much the rage in the 1960s; the formidable foursome of Cook and Moore, the author Alan Bennett, and the opera and theatre director Jonathan Miller formed the Beyond the Fringe team. It is claimed their acts at The Establishment Club helped bring down the then Tory government.
Cook and Moore went on to create Pete and Dud, which became so popular that even my Scots Presbyterian mother loved them. The relationship gradually became strained by Cook’s apparent alcoholism and Moore’s craving for stardom. However, before the partnership ended they produced an underground recording of the infamous blue Derek and Clive, which went on to haunt Moore and his Hollywood status.
In Michael Eriera’s production, Dud dies and goes to Limbo, only to find Pete (Johnny Hansler) at the bar in his famous costume of cap and dirty gabardine with white muffler, cigarette and glass in hand.
They are in the comedians’ Limboland awaiting the divine judgment of the Creator of all comics for the cardinal sin of Derek and Clive.
A collection of once-controversial, very English comedians confront them: Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Leonard Rossiter, Frankie Howard, Kenneth Williams and Hawtrey (all played by the talented Clive Greenwood).
It is yet to be decided whether they can take the upstairs elevator, or be dumped in the nightmarish landscape of sad comedians looking for their inner selves – only to find there is nothing there.
The best of Greenwood’s turns is his Peter Sellers impersonation of Fred Kite, the communist shop steward of the Boulting Brothers film, I’m All Right, Jack. Hansler’s Peter Cook is spot-on; he captures his tormented genius and his ultimate inner sadness.
The ending of the piece was rather abrupt; I’m not sure if it was a flaw in the writing or that I was craving for more.
Encore.
Until May 26
0844 847 2475
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