Look! Up on the screen! Is it a stage? Is it a play? Is it a film? It’s all of them and them for all!
ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS was a huge hit at the National Theatre in London and the West End, and is currently showing on Broadway.
ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS has won a host of awards including Best New Play at the Critics’ Circle Awards, Best Actor (James Corden).
All well and good, but normally filmed stage plays are bland, theatrical embellishments looking flat and kind of cardboard. They are stagey rather than cinematic.
For the first quarter hour or so with extraneous songs and a lengthy exposition all fears of a naff night out rise from the screen. I wanted to pull my teeth out or book in for a colonoscopy. But then, like theatrical magic, the narrative takes hold, the farce hits full force and never abates, the comedic cream rises to the top and refuses to curdle.
The story in a nutshell: Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe, a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from his fiancee’s dad. But Roscoe is really his sister Rachel posing as her own dead brother, who’s been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers. Holed up at The Cricketers’ Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be re-united with Rachel. To prevent discovery, Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.
In Richard Bean’s English version of Goldoni’s classic Italian comedy, sex, food and money are high on the agenda. It’s fast, it’s furious, it’s shockingly surprising. It has set changes camouflaged as variety acts! James Corden plays Francis to the hilt at full tilt, a funnier performance you are not likely to see, guaranteed to have the tears running down your legs.
It’s the best filmed stage play I have yet to see. Hope you agree.
ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS is just playing this weekend, Saturday July 7 and Sunday July 8. PARTICIPATING CINEMAS are the Hayden Orpheum Cremorne, Riverside Theatres Parramatta, Chauvel Cinema, Manly Cinemas
Tags: Sydney Theatre Reviews- ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS, Richard Bean, James Corden, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter