James Corden’s ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ on Broadway - The New York Times The New York Times Theater |Commedia Dell’Arte via English Music Hall Search Continue reading the main story LONDON IN the many months he has played the lead in “One Man, Two Guvnors,” James Corden has scratched an eyeball, lost his voice, torn the cartilage in his knee and torn something else in his hip. Once, having safely negotiated the scene that requires him to tumble over a sofa backward, he smacked his head on a door, leading to a two-minute onstage mental gap, he said, when he was not altogether sure where he was. And once, he said in a recent interview, the peanut he is supposed to catch in his mouth in Act I became lodged in his throat. “I started coughing and tried to carry on and said, ‘I’ve got to get some water.’ Then I turned to the audience and said, ‘This isn’t part of the play.’ ” It wasn’t, and it was fine. Mr. Corden, 33, relishes nothing more than rolling with the unexpected.

“One Man, Two Guvnors” is a classic ensemble slapstick farce, but what has drawn the crowds here is the way it lets its irrepressible star exercise his oversize, expansive, inventive, hyper-energetic playfulness. It is his sandbox, filled with his toys. “I’ve never done the same show twice,” he said. Set in 1963 Brighton, the play is an adaptation by Richard Bean of “The Servant of Two Masters,” an 18th-century commedia dell’arte farce by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni. It has been a sellout hit in London, where it opened in May at the National Theater and then transferred to the West End. On Feb. 25 Mr. Corden leaves that production for Broadway, where it begins performances at the Music Box Theater on April 6. Photo James Corden is bringing his West End hit “One Man, Two Guvnors” to Broadway. Credit Tristram Kenton The play was written after Mr. Corden was cast as a surefire draw. First known as Timms, the fat, funny guy in Alan Bennett’s “History Boys,” Mr.

Corden pushed his reputation in Britain to another level through the wildly popular television series “Gavin & Stacey,” which he created, co-wrote and starred in . Continue reading the main story In “One Man, Two Guvnors” Mr. Corden plays Francis Henshall, a goodhearted, chronically hungry, not-so-smart, out-of-work musician who finds simultaneous employment with two demanding bosses mixed up in a complicated world of small-potatoes gangsterism, cross-dressing, mistaken identity and thwarted romance. (“Guvnor” is slang for “boss.”) A tribute to the low English comic traditions of pantomime, variety shows and seaside farce, the play been embraced by a country hungry for diversion from the relentlessly bad economic news that has put it into a collective, dread-filled funk. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Corden, with a face like an enormous potato and a physical dexterity that is astonishing in one so corpulent, brings a winningly warm and harassed humanity to the role,” Charles Spencer wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

“He constantly button-holes the audience with asides and ad libs, and turns the play’s great set piece in which he simultaneously serves dinner to his two masters into one of the most uproarious scenes of farcical comedy I have ever witnessed.” Mr. Corden will not be drawn into speculation about what in the play is spontaneous and what is scripted, making it clear in the interview that he wanted to preserve the mystique of what he referred to as “the sandwich.” “The sandwich is sacred,” he said. The most striking thing about Mr. Corden’s actual presence is how comparatively not-fat he has become. Having marshmallowed to nearly 300 pounds at one point, he found his heft too exhausting, and has since puffed down to a more manageable 220-something pounds — not slender (“Define ‘slender,’ ” he snorted), but not enormous. He has a baby and a fiancée, he said, and he did it in part for them.

Photo James Corden, backstage at the London production of "One Man, Two Guvnors." Credit David Corio for The New York Times “I’m on a caffeine-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, wheat-free, dairy-free diet,” he said, opening the refrigerator in his dressing room at the Adelphi Theater to reveal an array of aggressively colored juices. “I drink this one at 11,” he said pointing to the red one, which appeared to have something to do with beets. “I drink the green one at 4.” He was in a pair of jeans, no belt, that were too big — his old clothes do not match his new physique — and that rode down his hips as he reached into the fridge, revealing a pair of bright red underpants. The play has been a revelation to people who knew Mr. Corden only from television, just as the existence of his other life as a screenwriter has been a revelation to those who saw him only as a comic actor. But Mr. Corden sees it all as of a piece. A few years ago he found himself at a wedding in a Welsh seaside town. He knew almost no one, so he hung back and observed.

“You get a load of people coming to spend a whole load of time together to hear two people say, ‘I love you, and I would like to be with you for a long time, if that’s O.K.,’ ” he said. “And I thought, ‘I’ve never seen a wedding like this on TV before, where nothing happens but everything happens.’ ” He called Ruth Jones, who acted with him in a sitcom called “Fat Friends,” and the two collaborated on what eventually became “Gavin & Stacey,” a 20-episode series about a couple — she is from Wales, he from Essex — who fall in love. (Mr. Corden and Ms. Jones played the couple’s sidekicks and all but stole the show.) It managed to be hilarious, sweet and not treacly, reflecting Mr. Corden’s worldview that “the majority of people like their friends and love their families and get on with people most of the time.” Photo James Corden, left, helped create the BBC sitcom “Gavin & Stacey” with Ruth Jones, a co-star on the show.

Credit BBC America Some 543,000 people watched the first episode; 10.25 million watched the last. Ms. Jones said the show reflected Mr. Corden’s quick and fertile mind. “He is a natural storyteller and incredibly observant,” she said. “He picks up on the tiniest of details. He celebrates other people and the wonder of them. And he could literally have a conversation about anything. I mean anything.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Corden has since become a huge presence on British television, hosting award ceremonies, charity shows and quiz programs. He is currently writing a new series, whose premise, he said, is: “What if ‘24’ was a sitcom that happened to normal guys in a suburb outside of London?” A wall of his dressing room was affixed with cards containing plot points like “The Russian has been brutally murdered.” But Nicholas Hytner, the director of “One Man, Two Guvnors,” said that for all his versatility, Mr. Corden is a natural theater actor.

“There are an awful lot of television performers who can’t carry 1,000 people with them and don’t have the technique to keep it going for two and a half hours and whose personalities aren’t that vivid onstage,” he said. “But James’s personality is so large and all encompassing.” The success of “One Man, Two Guvnors” in London has rested largely on Mr. Corden’s ability to meet the expectations of audiences who already love him. In New York, Mr. Hytner said, “he will have to create that relationship.” That might include unforeseen moments, as in London, when audience members get carried away and yell at Mr. Corden from their seats. “Sometimes people throw things at him,” Mr. Hytner added fondly. “But he’s really good at all that. There’s nothing you can throw at him that fazes him.” A version of this article appears in print on February 26, 2012, on Page AR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Commedia Dell’Arte Via English Music Hall.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Tom Edden in ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ - The New York Times The New York Times Theater |Nimble Clown Playing Old in Rough-and-Tumble Role Search Continue reading the main story TAKE a floppy-haired Muppet. Dress it as a waiter. Rearrange its face until its features slope to one side. Throw it across the room. Repeatedly. If that puppet came to life it might look something like the actor Tom Edden in the British comedy “One Man, Two Guvnors,” now on Broadway at the Music Box Theater. Although Mr. Edden has a scant 20 or so lines and just one big set piece in the two-and-a-half-hour show, he is doing some old-fashioned scene stealing and getting some of the biggest laughs of the season. Dressed in a ratty outfit, with a head of wispy white hair and heaps of makeup, Mr. Edden plays Alfie, a wild-eyed but slow-moving octogenarian waiter who is enlisted to help Francis (played by James Corden ) serve his two bosses a pub lunch of soup, cold meats and chicken balls. The problem? It’s Alfie’s first day on the job.

That and he has cataracts, is just this side of deaf, leans to one side, slurs his speech (it’s that contorted mouth), has a pacemaker and the shakes. Or as the script describes it, he’s “old, slow and doddery.” Mr. Edden said: “He finds stairs and doors and plates and everyday objects a bit of a herculean trial. He’s doing his best.” Photo Tom Edden was nominated for a Tony for his role as Alfie, an octogenarian waiter who absorbs a punishing assortment of physical abuse in “One Man, Two Guvnors.” Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times Set in 1963 “One Man, Two Guvnors” comes from an English tradition of lowbrow comedy that’s naughty, playfully mean and slapstick happy. (The playwright Richard Bean based it on “The Servant of Two Masters,” an 18th-century Italian farce by Carlo Goldoni.) Over the course of the 25-minute dinner scene that ends Act I, Mr. Edden is put through a physical comedy regimen that would tax even the most seasoned clown.

He gets dragged by the legs face down; takes a door, a cricket bat and bottle opener to the face; careers offstage on a cart; and takes a piggyback ride. Continue reading the main story “The whole show is a kind of reinvention of universal traditions of great comic archetypes of physical clowning and the indestructible old guy,” said Nicholas Hytner, the director of “One Man, Two Guvnors” and the artistic director of the National Theater in London, where the show had its premiere last year. “He’s playing a cartoon grotesque but he’s playing it for real.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The show received mostly glowing reviews when it opened last month. Mr. Edden was singled out for his physical comedy, with Ben Brantley in The New York Times calling him “the show’s master of pratfalls.” The Tony Awards committee noticed too: Mr. Edden and Mr. Corden were nominated for their performances. (The Tonys will be awarded on June 10.) Over lunch recently Mr. Edden — thin, clear skinned, dressed in a red gingham shirt — looked less like Alfie than the stylish young urbanite he is.

Still, you could see Alfie in Mr. Edden’s large, slightly popped and heavy-lidded eyes. And then he demonstrated getting into character, slowly decompressing his body, part by part: “I go ankle, knees, waist, shoulders, hand, hand, lip, eyes, and that’s it.” And with that, there, for a second, sat Alfie. Photo Tom Edden, mid-fall, with Oliver Chris in “One Man, Two Guvnors,” at the Music Box Theater. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times Through physical transformation Mr. Edden, who is just 33, believably plays a character more than 50 years his senior. It’s a feat Mr. Hytner remembers from Mr. Edden’s audition. “He came in the room, pulled up his trousers around his chest and pulled himself double,” Mr. Hytner said. “We asked him to carry a chair across the room with great difficulty as if he was 87. He nailed it straightaway.” To develop Alfie’s physicality Mr.

Edden said he exaggerated some asymmetrical features of his own body, including a slight scoliosis and a left leg that’s about an inch longer than his right. As a comedic cousin he pointed to the bug-eyed actor Marty Feldman and his turn as Igor in the Mel Brooks film “Young Frankenstein.” “Big nose, big eyes, big hump, funny guy,” Mr. Edden said. “He used his physical peculiarities to be funny.” Video Tom Edden in ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ Tom Edden plays Alfie, an octogenarian waiter, in the Broadway comedy at the Music Box Theater. By 'One Man, Two Guvnors' on Publish Date May 2, 2012. . Watch in Times Video » embed A classically trained actor, with Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare and pantomime under his belt, Mr. Edden lacks the formal clowning training you might expect in an actor playing Alfie. But he does have an affection for physical comedy that comes, he said, from watching Laurel and Hardy and Marx Brothers movies as a child.

(American audiences might also see echoes of Tim Conway ’s old-man character shuffling his way across the set of “The Carol Burnett Show.”) Every minute he’s onstage, clowning principles are in play. His face and body are contorted, and several times he appears to plunge down a flight of stairs. (He is asked so often about how he does it that he keeps a video on his cellphone to show just that.) To keep his body in tune Mr. Edden stretches extensively before each show, and wears protective padding on his backside, knees and elbows. Bruises he received during the show’s West End run had started to heal when the production moved to Broadway. Now they’re back. For Mr. Edden there’s humor even in pain. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “It’s my Broadway bruise debut,” he said. A version of this article appears in print on May 6, 2012, on Page AR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Nimble Clown Playing Old In Rough-and-Tumble Role.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe New cast for One Man, Two Guvnors New cast for One Man, Two Guvnors Attractions New cast for One Man, Two Guvnors From 4 February 2013 a new cast will perform in Nicholas Hytner’s One Man, Two Guvnors at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. As previously announced, Rufus Hound will take the lead as loveable chancer Francis Henshall. He will join new cast members Sam Alexander, Ian Burfield, Amy Cudden, Harry Kershaw, Kelly Price and Hugh Sachs. Martin Barrass will return to the production to play Alfie, and current cast members David Benson, Rhona Croker and Derek Elroy will continue. Mensah Bediako, Owen Brazendale, Gillian Budd, Max Hutchinson, Tom Lorcan, Aimee Parkes and Claire Sundin complete the ensemble. Richard Bean’s award-winning version of Carlo Goldoni’s classic Italian comedy The Servant of Two Masters has songs by Grant Olding performed by The Craze.

The physical comedy director on One Man, Two Guvnors is Cal McCrystal, with designs by Mark Thompson, lighting by Mark Henderson, sound design by Paul Arditti, fight direction by Kate Waters and choreography and associate direction by Adam Penford. 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. Sam Alexander (Stanley Stubbers) was last on stage in No Naughty Bits at Hampstead Theatre. His other theatre credits include The Bacchae for the Royal Exchange Theatre and Hay Fever at Chichester Festival Theatre.

He has also worked extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company where his credits include Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At Shakespeare’s Globe his credits include The Comedy of Errors, A Winter’s Tale and Troilus and Cressida. His television credits include Criminal Justice, Lewis, Skins, The Marchioness Disaster and Hamlet. Martin Barrass (Alfie) returns to the Theatre Royal Haymarket to reprise his role as Alfie. His previous theatre credits include Peter Pan, Stan Laurel in Laurel and Hardy, The Railway Children and Toad in The Wind in the Willows all for the Theatre Royal York. He also appeared in Richard Bean’s Toast for Hull Truck Theatre Company. His television credits include Emmerdale, Angels and The Bill. David Benson (Gareth) has been a member of the One Man, Two Guvnors company since its premiere at the National Theatre. His other theatre credits include Future Me for Theatre 503, Same Time Next Year for the Theatre Royal Winchester and Loot for Derby Playhouse. He has won two Fringe First awards for his one man shows Think No Evil of Us: My Life with Kenneth Williams and Lockerbie: Unfinished Business.

His television credits include Bremner, Bird and Fortune and Goodnight Sweetheart. Ian Burfield (Charlie Clench) has worked extensively in theatre, television and film. His previous National Theatre credits include The Comedy of Errors, The Kitchen, Napoli Milionaria, and Richard III. He also starred in Journey’s End at Playhouse Theatre and A Streetcar Named Desire at Bristol Old Vic. His extensive television credits include Way to Go, The Secret of Crickley Hall, Him & Her, Public Enemies, Merlin, New Tricks, My Family, Heartbeat and The Fixer. His film credits include Mercenaries, Acts of Godfrey, V for Vendetta, The International, Circus and The Krays. Rhona Croker (Pauline) has been a member of the One Man, Two Guvnors company since September 2012. In 2008, Rhona toured the British comedy circuits with her show Croker & Jory: The Love Shepherds.

Her other theatre credits include The Roman Bath at the Arcola Theatre, The Hub at Edinburgh’s Pleasance Theatre, Spyski at the Lyric Hammersmith, Pot Noodle: The Musical at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, Playback at the Salisbury Playhouse as well as Cinderella and Twelfth Night both for the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre. Her television credits include The Wrong Door, Watson and Oliver, My Family and Micro Men and has appeared in the film Prometheus. Amy Cudden’s (Rachel Crabbe) theatre credits include The Village Bike for Sheffield Theatre and Shallow Slumber for Soho Theatre. On television her credits include Doctor Who, Casualty and Phone Shop. Derek Elroy (Lloyd) has been a member of the One Man, Two Guvnors company since its premiere at the National Theatre. Previously his theatre credits include The Harder They Come, Red Riding Hood and Aladdin for the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Dick Whittington and His Cat at the Barbican and I Was Looking at the Ceiling for Southwark Playhouse. His television credits include Rev, If…., Buried Treasure and The Bill. His film credits include Breakfast on Pluto and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Rufus Hound (Francis Henshall) is currently playing Francis Henshall in the UK tour of One Man, Two Guvnors. He is best known as a comedian, TV and radio personality, where his work includes seven series of the award-winning Celebrity Juice, the BBC sitcom Hounded, 8 out of 10 Cats, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and ITV1 primetime hit comedy show Mad Mad World. He is soon to be seen in the second series of A Touch of Cloth for Sky. His radio credits include Act Your Age and My Teenage Diary for BBC Radio 4, as well as his own comedy show What’s So Funny. Hound’s film credits include Wedding Video and My Big Fat Gypsy Gangster. In addition Hound has presented Top of the Pops, Glastonbury Live and Out Take TV, all for the BBC. Harry Kershaw (Alan Dangle), a recent RADA graduate, will be making his professional stage debut in One Man, Two Guvnors. His television credits include Switch, Endeavor and Wallander. On film he has appeared in Skyfall, Blue Monday and Great Expectations.

Kelly Price (Dolly) was last on stage in the West End at the Garrick Theatre in A Little Night Music which transferred from the Menier Chocolate Factory. Her other theatre credits include Company for Sheffield Theatres, Perchance to Dream for the Finborough Theatre, Stepping Out for Salisbury Playhouse, The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre, Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre, Guys and Dolls for the Donmar Warehouse, Mamma Mia at the Prince Edward Theatre and Woman in White at the Palace Theatre. Her television credits include Hollyoaks, Midsomer Murders, Waterloo Road and Accused. And on film she has been seen in A Bunch of Amateurs. Hugh Sachs (Harry Dangle) was last on stage in A Woman Killed with Kindness at the National Theatre where he has previously appeared in Peter Pan. His other theatre credits include See How They Run at the Royal Exchange Theatre and Privates on Parade at the Donmar Warehouse. On television Sachs is best known for playing the role of Gavin in five series of Benidorm. His other television credits include Foyles War, My Family, The Catherine Tate Show, Rome and City of Vice.

Amongst his film credits areYou Will Meet a Tall Stranger, The Nutcracker - The Untold Story, The Libertine and Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Richard Bean’s plays include England People Very Nice for the National, The Heretic, Harvest (winner of the Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play), Honeymoon Suite, Under the Whaleback and Toast for the Royal Court and The Big Fellah for Out of Joint at the Lyric Hammersmith and on tour. He adapted David Mamet’s House of Games and wrote a new version of The Hypochondriac for the Almeida Theatre. Bean won the 2011 Evening Standard Award for Best Play for One Man, Two Guvnors and The Heretic.

Since he became Director of the National in April 2003, Nicholas Hytner has directed Henry V, His Dark Materials, The History Boys, Stuff Happens, Henry IV, Southwark Fair, The Alchemist, The Man of Mode, The Rose Tattoo (with Stephen Pimlott), Rafta, Rafta… , Much Ado About Nothing, Major Barbara, England People Very Nice, Phèdre, The Habit of Art, London Assurance, Hamlet, Collaborators, Travelling Light ,Timon of Athens and People. One Man, Two Guvnors opened at the National Theatre in May 2011. In November last year, after its first UK tour, the show opened in the West End at the Adelphi Theatre where it completed a sell out run. Since 2 March 2012 the show has been playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The Broadway production of One Man, Two Guvnors recently completed its successful run at the Music Box Theater, where James Corden won the Tony Award for Best Actor. A second UK tour continues to February 2013 with the show embarking on an international tour immediately afterwards.

More One Man, Two Guvnors news Rufus Hound joins One Man, Two Guvnors UK tour - BBC News BBC News Rufus Hound joins One Man, Two Guvnors UK tour 25 June 2012 Close share panel Image caption Hound (l) will play the role originated on stage by James Corden (r) Comedian Rufus Hound will lead the cast of hit comedy One Man, Two Guvnors when it tours the UK later this year. The Celebrity Juice star will take on the role of Francis Henshall, played at the National Theatre and subsequently on Broadway by James Corden. Owain Arthur, currently in the show's West End production, will join the touring version for dates in Wales. The UK tour kicks off in Leicester on 25 October and will end in Nottingham in February 2013. Hound is best known for his appearances on ITV2's Celebrity Juice and Channel 4 quiz show 8 out of 10 Cats. He recently announced plans to focus on acting and is currently making his professional stage debut in Utopia at London's Soho Theatre.

One Man, Two Guvnors has enjoyed huge success since opening at the National in May 2011, under the direction of Sir Nicholas Hytner. Written by Richard Bean, the play is an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's 1746 comedy The Servant of Two Masters and has already toured the UK with Corden in the lead. Media captionRufus Hound told BBC Radio 5 live why he wanted a change from comedy Earlier this month Corden won a Tony Award for his performance in the New York production. The full touring cast is yet to be announced, although the National has confirmed Jodie Prenger will join Hound for shows at The Lowry in Salford and her home town of Blackpool. Prenger, who is currently starring as Dolly in the London production, has been working in the West End since winning the role of Nancy in Oliver! on BBC One's I'd Do Anything. The tour also takes in venues in Newcastle, Glasgow, Belfast, Norwich and Leeds.

Owain Arthur returns to One Man, Two Guvnors Tickets | London News Tickets | West End Main Article Related Shows Following an acclaimed international tour, Owain Arthur will return to the West End production of ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 23 September 2013. After travelling over 25,500 miles worldwide and performing almost 500 times, Arthur will reprise his role as loveable chancer Francis Henshall in the National Theatre ’s internationally acclaimed smash hit comedy. Arthur previously performed the role at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2012, on tour in the UK and having understudied James Cordon at the Adelphi Theatre. His theatre credits include Nicholas Hytner's The History Boys ( NT ), Romeo and Juliet ( Royal Shakespeare Company ), The Comedy of Errors (Royal Exchange) and Birdsong (Comedy Theatre). On television his credits include Holby City, Ddeg, Cei Bach, New Tricks and The Palace. His film credits include Abroad, Mr Nice and Eldra.

Arthur will be joined by Angela Griffin as Dolly, with Kellie Shirley and Peter Caulfield reprising their roles of Pauline Clench and Alfie, previous played in the ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS touring productions. Dominic Thorburn joins the cast to play Alan Dangle. Peter Caulfield (Alfie) recently toured with ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS on its second UK tour. His previous theatre credits include Me and My Girl (Kilworth House Theatre), The Merchant of Venice and The Wind in the Willows (Derby Theatre), Enron ( Chichester Festival Theatre and Royal Court), Present: Tense (Southwark Playhouse), Man of Mode ( NT ), The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse), Into the Woods ( Royal Opera House ) and Elegies: A Song Cycle (Arts Theatre). Angela Griffin (Dolly) will make her West End debut in ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS. She has worked extensively on television as an actress and presenter and was last on screen starring as Shelly in Sky 1's comedy drama series Mount Pleasant. Griffin first came to prominence on ITV1's Coronation Street for 5 years.

Her other television credits include starring roles in Holby City, Babyfather, Cutting It and Waterloo Road. She has also been seen in Hustle, Down To Earth and Waking the Dead all for the BBC as well as Open Wide and Boy Meets World both for ITV. As a presenter she's worked extensively for Sky 1 fronting her own daily talk show Angela and Friends, as well as Emergency with Angela Griffin. On film she has been seen in Last Chance Harvey starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Kellie Shirley (Pauline Clench) joins the West End cast having previously performed the role of Pauline in the production's UK and international tours. On television she played series regular Carly Wicks in Eastenders from 2006–2012. Her other television work has included Lewis, The Office, Murder City, Parents of the Band, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky and The Bill. Her theatre credits include Cinderella (Richmond Theatre), Rhoda ( Menier Chocolate Factory ), State Fair (Finborough Theatre), The Miracle ( NT ), Slam (Soho Theatre) and Best of the Rest (Royal Court).

Shirley's film credits include Frank, Girl on a Bicycle, Venus, The Grind, Heidi and Wimbledon. Dominic Thorburn's (Alan Dangle) theatre credits include Macbeth (Manchester International Festival), Our Country's Good (St. James Theatre), Henry V and The Winter's Tale (Propeller Theatre Company) and Henry IV Parts I & II (Theatre Royal Bath). His screen credits include Everywhere and Nowhere and I Shouldn't Be Alive: Avalanche. Current cast members Sam Alexander (Stanley Stubbers), David Benson (Gareth), Ian Burfield (Charlie Clench), Amy Cudden (Rachel Crabbe), Derek Elroy (Lloyd Boateng) and Hugh Sachs (Harry Dangle) will continue in their roles. Multi award-winning ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS has now been seen by over 1 million people worldwide since it opened at the National in May 2011. Now in its third year and currently booking at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 1 March 2014, don't miss Nicholas Hytner's five star production of Richard Bean's version of Carlo Goldoni's classic Italian comedy. Book your ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS tickets today!

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2017 Fri, 20 Jan 2017 10:36:09 GMT 2017-01-20T10:36:09Z Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2017 The Guardian Rufus Norris: ‘I’m not a visionary. I don’t have to have all the ideas’ <p>Eighteen months into his tenure, the National Theatre’s artistic head, a one-time painter and decorator, talks diversity, criticism and making a drama out of Brexit</p><p>Rufus Norris never expected to end up running the <a href="">National Theatre</a>. And it’s true that he comes from a quite different place to his predecessors. Apart from anything else, he is – what a strange and uncomfortable thing this is to write – the first <a href="">artistic director</a> since Laurence Olivier not to have attended Cambridge University. “At first, it was very, very weird,” he says, with a sudden grin when we meet. “I really didn’t think it would ever happen.

I was an associate director here and, after one of our weekly meetings, Nick [Nicholas Hytner, his astonishingly successful and much-loved predecessor] asked me to stay behind. At the time, I was directing a film, <a href=""><em>Broken</em></a>, and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s it, he’s had enough; he’s going to tell me I’m not committing enough and terminate my associateship.’ In fact, what he said to me, as he did to several others, was, ‘I’m going to be hanging up my gloves and you should think about it.’” </p><p>It’s a sign of how far Norris, 51, was from considering such a move that when he went home and told his wife, the playwright Tanya Ronder, what Hytner had said, they didn’t even discuss it. “And when it came up again later, I said, ‘No, I’ll never get it.’” But then something shifted. “What play or film could you do in the next five years that would make you glad you didn’t take the National Theatre job if you were offered it?” asked Ronder, at which point he began to think.

His children – he has two – were older and beginning to make their own way in the world. He would have plenty of projects on which to work if he failed. It would be cowardly not to apply. So he did. “I guess I thought I wouldn’t get it because I’m not like people who’ve done it in the past. But if you’re asking me if it’s not quite good that I’m not like them, well, yes, this is the first step to opening it out. Wouldn’t it be a great if, one day, a black woman was doing this job?

</p><p>I always wanted to do a big show, a dramaturgically complex show, that has no words</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Rufus Norris New work makes up nearly two-thirds of all British theatre productions Numbers of shows and seats sold do well despite budget cuts as original material booms for first time for more than a century, survey finds<p>For the first time in more than a century, the British theatre scene is now dominated by new work including original plays, musicals, operas and pantomimes, which make up almost two-thirds of all productions.</p><p>Parallel surveys of productions in both subsidised and commercial theatres show that new writing, and straight plays, are doing remarkably well <a href="" title="">despite budget cuts</a>, in both numbers of shows and seats sold.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Theatre Why the National Theatre must make itself a truly national service Residents of Detroit could have seen more of the NT last year than people living in Sunderland.

Is so much touring overseas in the National's interests?<p>The <a href="">National Theatre's annual report</a> makes interesting reading, particularly for anyone interested in regional touring and the increasing contribution that <a href="">NT Live</a> makes to the National's coffers. At a time when theatre must face up to the distribution challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, <a href="">NT Live has been ahead of the game</a>. It's also making a growing income contribution to the NT bottom line: £6.7m in 2014, against £2.4m in 2013, making it the fastest growing area of operation (although costs remain high). Markets such as Asia that remain relatively untapped may yet substantially increase profits.</p><p>So everyone's a winner. Or are they? I've always been a supporter of NT Live, but the argument that it offers wider access to audiences across the UK only holds up as long as it doesn't dilute the NT's commitment to touring and, rather, that it fuels it.

A further look at the figures for the 52 weeks ended 30 March 2014 shows that the NT undertook 33 weeks of touring in the UK and toured for 99 weeks abroad. If you live in Detroit, Jacksonville or Fort Lauderdale you could have seen more of the National Theatre than if you live in Wales, Northern Ireland or the north-east of England. </p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> National Theatre Playwright Richard Bean: ‘You can make jokes about anything’ One Man Two Guvnors is a box office phenomenon, and the man behind it&nbsp;has another five plays on stage this month. Richard Bean talks about legal wrangles, dodgy gags and why success hasn’t made him happy<p>All writers have a creative ritual, and <a href="" title="">Richard Bean</a>’s involves a shed and a kettle.

The dramatist writes in a wooden hut in his garden and, if he comes up with a&nbsp;line or plot idea that particularly pleases him, allows himself to go back to the house to make a cup of tea.</p><p>At the moment, the playwright may&nbsp;be at risk of Typhoo-poisoning, because six scripts featuring just such moments have been produced this summer and autumn. <a href="" title="">Great Britain</a>, his&nbsp;drama about newspaper phone-hacking, transferred from the National to London’s West End last week, where it will soon be joined by his dialogue and plot (what Broadway calls “the&nbsp;book”) for the musical version of&nbsp;<a href="" title="">Made in Dagenham</a>. The historical drama Pitcairn has just moved from Chichester to Shakespeare’s Globe and&nbsp;a revival of Toast, his 1999 stage-writing debut, recently played at the Park Theatre in north London.

A version of Molière’s The Hypochondriac opens in Bath this month, while One Man, Two Guvnors – the farce that has been a National, West End and Broadway hit&nbsp;– is still touring the UK.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Richard Bean Cal McCrystal brings on the clowns - ancient Greek style Latest venture from the director behind the slapstick in One Man, Two Guvnors involves Giffords Circus, a&nbsp;Trojan horse – and a goose called Brian<p>The ancient Greek epic that is coming to a big top in the Cotswolds this summer, complete with Trojan horse, should not be taken seriously. In fact, Cal McCrystal would be offended if it were.

The <a href="" title="to Guardian appreciation">comic mastermind responsible for much of the success of <em>One Man, Two Guvnors</em></a> and for <a href="" title="link to guardian review">the physical comedy in <em>Spider-Man 2</em></a> has turned his back on Hollywood and Broadway for a while to concentrate on his love of circus antics – in particular of <a href="" title="link to circus site">Giffords Circus, a vintage-style touring company</a> with a loyal rural following.</p><p>"I first heard about Giffords when I was working on <em>One Man, Two Guvnors</em> and I went along and was very impressed. They offered me a job on the spot and I have been doing work with them for three years now," McCrystal said. "It all looks very traditional.

All the trucks are plum-coloured with gold lettering, but what we do in the ring is kind of avant garde, although we try to be true to a circus narrative."</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Circus My dressing room: Owain Arthur The star of One Man, Two Guvnors on the nightly pain of his role, his need for burgers and why onesies are the perfect backstage outfit<p>I've been in this dressing room for almost two years – apart from our tour to Australia and Hong Kong and a couple of months off. It's basically my second home and yet, in a few weeks time, when <a href="" title="">One Man, Two Guvnors</a> finishes, that'll be it.</p><p>It's a pretty special dressing room as they go. It's the first I've ever had to myself and look at it: it's like a hotel suite. The whole place is dripping with history too. Someone told me that that Oscar Wilde lived in here for a while and if you look in the desk drawers, they're covered in signatures.

One's got Patrick Stewart and Sonya Cassidy; the other's got Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Joanna Lumley … and me!</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors Hytner to set up new theatre company when he leaves National Theatre NT's hugely successful artistic director plans to continue working with long-time collaborator Nick Starr in commercial sector<p>Nicholas Hytner has disclosed plans to set up an independent theatre company targeting the commercial sector when he leaves the National Theatre (NT) in March next year.</p><p>Speaking at Salford's Lowry Theatre, where War Horse is currently playing on its first UK tour, Hytner confirmed that he would continue his partnership with executive director Nick Starr, who leaves the NT later this year.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Nicholas Hytner One Man, Two Guvnors: the tour de farce reaches Adelaide Not even a nervous guide dog on opening night can halt the irrepressible momentum of the National's runaway hit<p>Planning only gets you so far.

After more than 100 performances as Francis Henshall in the National theatre's <a href="" title="">One Man, Two Guvnors</a>, both in the West End and on tour, <a href="" title="">Owain Arthur</a> reckoned he knew where all the laughs and possible pratfalls were to be found. Then came the opening night of the <a href="" title="">Adelaide festival</a> and the guide dog that threw a bone in the works. It started barking when Arthur made his first entrance and wouldn't stop. "For some reason, it felt threatened by me," he laughs, "so I had to try and make friends with it." Hence the unscheduled off-stage visit to the auditorium to get the dog onside. It took considerably longer for him to tame the hound than it usually takes him to win over an audience.</p><p>If its end-of-the-pier, improvisational feel has been a major factor in the show's popularity, its longevity owes rather more to meticulous preparation. It will take rather more than a stroppy dog to knock One Man, Two Guvnors off track.

"You can never predict exactly which show you are going to take on tour," says Pádraig Cusack, the NT's touring producer.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Adelaide festival 2013 One Man, Two Guvnors – review After hugely successful runs in London and then New York, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors lands in Adelaide for 10 days<p>After <a href="">hugely successful runs in London</a> and <a href="">then New York</a>, Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors lands in Adelaide for ten days. This is a riotous blast of 1960s Britain, from the Buddy Holly-esque band which opens and close the show, to the swirling decor of the sets, to the pinstriped suits and push-up bras of the cast. </p><p>Does it fit the festival? Its broad comedy is not an obvious match with a theatre programme strong on <a href="">experimental and intimate work</a> – but who cares when it's properly funny.

Bean's play updates Carlo Goldini's 1746 drama The Servant of Two Masters, and goes heavy on the pantomime, farce and physical comedy. The chaotic plot centres on the adventures of Francis Henshall, employed by two different bosses: Rachel, a young woman disguised as her dead twin brother; and Stanley, her lover, who killed the brother, and who is now in hiding. Neither is aware of the cross-over – and each wants the other back.

Confusion is piled upon confusion.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Adelaide festival 2013 National Theatre to smash records with eight plays open in London at once National's commercial output to soar when Alan Bennett double bill opens in March – and an April season still waiting in wings<p>For the first time ever, the <a href="" title="">National Theatre</a> will have four productions running simultaneously in the West End from March, when Alan Bennett's autobiographical double bill Hymn and Cocktail Sticks transfers into the Duchess theatre under the title <a href="" title="">Untold Stories</a>.</p><p>Nadia Fall and Nicholas Hytner's productions, which both star Alex Jennings as the veteran playwright, will join <a href="" title="">War Horse</a>, One Man, Two Guvnors and <a href="" title="">The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time</a> in the commercial sector on 22 March for a 12-week run.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> National Theatre Jez Butterworth's The River prompts fears of rise in paid queuing Tickets for much-anticipated play starring Dominic West will be available only on day of performance

<p>Heavy demand for seats to see Jez Butterworth's new play, <em>The River</em>, starring Dominic West, has raised fears about the growing practice of paid queue-standing at the box office and of increased touting.</p><p>The play is a much anticipated return to London's Royal Court theatre next month for Butterworth after his triumph with <em>Jerusalem</em>, but some fans have been infuriated by the theatre's decision to sell tickets only on the day of the performance.

Half the seats for the show will go on sale online at 9am each day during the run, while the rest will be available only in person at the door of the theatre from 10am.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Theatre One Man, Two Guvnors to tour Australia The hit National Theatre production is to visit major festivals in Asia and New Zealand, before taking up residency as part of Cate Blanchett's final season as co-artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company<p>The National Theatre's smash hit <a href="" title="">One Man, Two Guvnors</a> will swap Brighton pier for Bondi beach when it embarks on a tour of Australia and east Asia next year.</p><p>Having just finished a <a href="" title="">successful five months on Broadway</a>, Nicholas Hytner's production will visit major festivals in Hong Kong, Adelaide and Auckland from February, before playing six-week runs in each of Australia's two cultural capitals, Sydney and Melbourne.

The transfer might require playwright <a href="" title="">Richard Bean to tinker with the script</a> a second time, to smooth some of the particularly British terminology for a new audience.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors Tony awards 2012: Once scoops eight gongs on night of upsets Disney's Newsies is beaten to best musical and British comic actor James Corden wins best actor in a play<p>Once, the intimate and melancholy bar-room musical that has charmed Broadway audiences and critics, took top honours at the Tony awards in a night of upsets at the annual US theatre industry bash.</p><p>With its largely British creative team, Once beat the boisterous corporate Disney behemoth Newsies to best musical, Steve Kazee won best actor in a musical, and John Tiffany won best director.

In all, Once took eight awards from 12 nominations.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Tony awards Tony awards 2012: British team helps Once lead nominations James Corden also nominated for Broadway's biggest theatre gongs for his role in One Man, Two Guvnors – as is Tracie Bennett, for her turn as Judy Garland<p>The National theatre's <a href="" title="">Broadway version</a> of One Man, Two Guvnors, starring <a href="" title="">James Corden</a> as a gluttonous buffoon, has received seven <a href="" title="">nominations</a> at this year's Tony Awards – but was trumped by the largely British creative team behind <a href="" title="">Once</a>, which picked up 11 to lead the pack.</p><p>Corden goes head to head with Hollywood stars such as <a href="" title="">Philip Seymour Hoffman</a> and <a href="" title="">James Earl Jones</a> for best actor in a leading role in a play, while the National theatre's artistic director, <a href="" title="">Nicholas Hytner</a>, is up for best director.</p

> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Tony awards One Man, Two Guvnors gets rave reviews on Broadway opening Critics sing praises of star James Corden as Richard Bean's Brighton-set farce opens at New York's Music Box theatre<p>American theatre critics have – perhaps fittingly, given the play's high volume of slapstick – fallen over themselves to praise the National theatre's production of One Man, Two Guvnors after it opened on Broadway on Wednesday night.</p><p>Following a sell-out National theatre run and a successful West End transfer, Richard Bean's end-of-the-pier twist on Carlo Goldoni's <a href="" title="">Servant of Two Masters</a> officially opened at New York's Music Box theatre last night, with James Corden reprising the role of former skiffle-player Francis Henshall.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors Bring on the understudy!

Does it matter if the star isn't in the show? As James Corden fans waiting to see One Man, Two Guvnors in the West End now know, the big-name actor may not be the one you see on stage. But sometimes these performances are the best<p>You've cleared your schedule, hired the babysitter, fought the crowds, taken out a small loan to finance your ticket purchase, and have finally settled into your plush(ish) seats to await the latest Broadway or West End sensation. Then you open your programme and watch as a tiny slip of paper flutters out – a slip that reads, "At tonight's performance, the role of …"</p><p>I felt that sinking sensation last week as I waited for the start of Des McAnuff's dippy, bombastic, and strangely compelling revival of <a href="" title="">Jesus Christ Superstar</a>. Judas, I learned, would not be played by the smoldering baritone <a href="" title="">Josh Young</a>, recently profiled in the New York Times, but instead by an actor unknown to me, Jeremy Kushnier.

I flipped ahead in my programme and stared at <a href="" title="">Kushnier</a>'s goofy headshot. It's a dangerous thing to abuse audience expectations. </p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors Full English, please: will Broadway gobble up One Man, Two Guvnors? Richard Bean's West End hit is transferring to New York. Let's hope American audiences get served the full English version in all its improvisatory glory<p><a href="" title="">Richard Bean</a>'s <a href="" title="">One Man, Two Guvnors </a>transfers to New York's Music Box theatre, with the bulk of its original National Theatre cast, in April. But, with its deeply English end-of-pier humour, can it possibly work on Broadway? I'm not a betting man but, if I were, I'd lay good money on it being a big hit.</p><p>The conventional wisdom used to be that nothing divided the Brits and the Americans so much as their taste in comedy.

Neil Simon's plays never made the same impact here that they did in New York: indeed he once told me that he spent more on London hotel bills than he ever earned in British royalties. Similarly, <a href="" title="">Alan Ayckbourn</a> was never as much appreciated on Broadway as he was in the West End or in Scarborough. There's a famous story of his American producers trying to reverse the order of the second and third acts in Absurd Person Singular because they thought a play should build to a comic crescendo.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors James Corden says he was a castaway long before Desert Island Discs Fame and loneliness led the Gavin &amp; Stacey star to go out drinking every night<p>James Corden was "so lost" at one point in his late 20s that his <em>Gavin &amp; Stacey</em> co-stars, Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon, both told him to change his habits.

The comic actor, who is starring in the West End's record-breaking hit <em>One Man, Two Guvnors</em>, and who is heading to New York for the play's opening on Broadway in spring, was out partying with strangers most nights of the week because he was lonely, the 33-year-old tells Kirsty Young when he is interviewed this morning on Radio 4's <em>Desert Island Discs</em>.</p><p>"I got lost beyond anywhere I thought I could have been," he tells Young. "This door had opened to a world that I thought looked like fun and where people go 'you are amazing. You are great. Can I have a photo? Do you want a drink?' So you just end up on this path of 3am cab rides with people you don't know heading across London to someone's house, who you don't know, with a group of people who think it's amazing that you are there. This is an intoxicating thing to be part of."</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> James Corden Max Hastings and James Corden: the most unlikely comedy double act ever?

The former Telegraph editor was humiliated on stage by James Corden at a performance of One Man, Two Guvnors. Not something that would have surprised him if he'd read the reviews<p>Poor old Max Hastings. There was the writer and former Daily Telegraph editor last week, dragged up to London from his Berkshire idyll to see One Man, Two Guvnors – the National theatre's widely lauded comedy, now transferred to the West End following sell-out performances at the Lyttleton and a UK tour – with his wife Penny, only to face the unexpected humiliation of being ridiculed on stage in front of a packed-out Adelphi theatre.</p><p><a href="" title="">According to an article in today's Daily Mail</a>, Hastings' tickets were exchanged at the last minute for seats in the front row, where early on in the show leading actor James Corden unceremoniously seized Hastings and another audience member, and forced them on to the stage to help him shift an apparently immovable trunk.

A series of humiliating jokes ensued: "Corden gazed up at me," Hastings writes, "with the complacency of a young tiger which sees its breakfast goat securely tethered."</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> One Man, Two Guvnors Comedies of errors: why we can't get enough theatrical farce From the pratfalls of One Man, Two Guvnors to the high-jinks of Noises Off, farce is all the rage. Is the real world to blame?<p>"Farcical" is a word that seems to be everywhere – connected with everything from <a href="" title="">football clubs</a>, to <a href="" title="">the Olympic Games</a>, government policies and the <a href="" title="">state of the banking system</a>. And it isn't just from over-enthusiastic headline writers. Theatre is also getting in on the act.</p><p>When John Buchan's <a href="" title="">The Thirty-Nine Steps</a> was published in 1915, it reportedly cheered up our boys fighting in the trenches during the first world war.

At the moment, on (or near) the West End, there's not only an anarchic <a href="" title="">stage adaptation of Buchan's classic</a> – a long-running hit – but <a href="" title="">One Man, Two Guvnors</a> and <a href="" title="">The Ladykillers</a>. Across the river Thames, The Comedy of Errors is packing them in at the National and <a href="" title="">Noises Off</a> is at the Old Vic, while at Manchester's Royal Exchange, Told by an Idiot's version of <a href="" title="">You Can't Take It with You</a> reanimates a comedy first seen in the depths of the great depression.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Theatre ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ theatre review | The Monthly ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ theatre review Good medicine April 2013 © Johann Persen One kind of laughter starts in the brain and seldom gets much further than a chuckling at the back of the throat or a scornful wrinkling of the lips as we respond to – or, better yet, say – something witty.

Another kind, louder and usually lewder, starts further down, and is synonymous with the belly. A smirking mouth can’t hold it in; it erupts from inside you like lava, in fits that eventually acquire their own momentum. When the spasm is over, you are left exhausted, gasping for breath, sometimes aching despite your exhilaration. You’ve been turned inside out, and may wonder why you made such a spectacle of yourself and allowed your face to be distorted by those bursts of mad hilarity. Be prepared to disgrace yourself, and maybe even to do yourself an injury, if you see One Man, Two Guvnors on its current Australian tour. Two years ago I... April 2013Medium length read Duterte’s dirty warA trip to the Philippines reveals the human cost of the war on drugs The art of biographyThe author stays out of the picture, and other personal rules of writing Green fields and blue skyIs Nick Cleary’s ambitious CLARA project the answer to Australia’s fast-rail question?

The second comingThe politics of rage won’t let us listen to one another The Centrelink summerThe government will be scorched unless it acts soon Dabiq and the Islamic State massacresHow precisely is this kind of permanent terror to be explained? The 20 most-read Monthly articles of 2016What captured the imagination of our readers this year? The narratorIn Zadie Smith’s new novel ‘Swing Time’, identity is always under construction Towards joyPop music is more than lyrics on a page One kind of laughter starts in the brain and seldom gets much further than a chuckling at the back of the throat or a scornful wrinkling of the lips as we respond to – or, better yet, say – something witty. Another kind, louder and usually lewder, starts further down, and is synonymous with the belly. A smirking mouth can’t hold it in; it erupts from inside you like lava, in fits that eventually acquire their own momentum. When the spasm is over, you are left exhausted, gasping for breath, sometimes aching despite your exhilaration.

You’ve been turned inside out, and may wonder why you made such a spectacle of yourself and allowed your face to be distorted by those bursts of mad hilarity. Be prepared to disgrace yourself, and maybe even to do yourself an injury, if you see One Man, Two Guvnors on its current Australian tour. Two years ago I went quite unprepared to a preview performance of Nicholas Hytner’s National Theatre in London production, knowing only that the piece was Richard Bean’s adaptation of an 18th-century harlequinade by Carlo Goldoni about a servant who elasticises himself so he can respond simultaneously to the demands of two capricious masters. I emerged tottering, my throat ragged from roaring with laughter for two hours, my ribs and stomach as sore as if I had been beaten up. Once the show opened, the hysteria spread. In 2012 the production went to New York and won a Tony for the portly, flustered James Corden, cast as Francis Henshall, the over-stretched but ingenious servant whose tight, spivvy chequered suit is his equivalent of the harlequin’s outfit in the commedia dell’arte.

Since then, with a succession of expert stand-up comedians replacing Corden, One Man, Two Guvnors has become a fixture in London’s West End, while another spun-off company recently travelled around the British provinces. (It’s this itinerant troupe who will be seen in Sydney and Melbourne.) The single man and his dual bosses are on a mission to cheer up the world, or perhaps to drive it happily deranged. On a return visit to the London version a while ago, I surrendered to the mayhem once more, but began to realise – during the interval that Francis permits us so we can recover from the first orgiastic hour while he conducts a health-and-safety check to see that none of his colleagues onstage have harmed themselves – that this is a play about comedy, exemplifying all its varieties, demonstrating its use as both a battering ram and a balm, and reminding us how essential it is to our mental health and social survival. No matter who’s playing the role, Francis should look like one of the red-faced characters in the naughty postcards that George Orwell said were a summation of the raucous, covertly obscene British sense of humour: he’s the comic spirit in person.

On the surface, to keep our brains diverted, One Man, Two Guvnors skitters through an anthology of jokes about language, which is the medium of our confusion and the cause of our inability to communicate. The milieu here is criminal – gangsters from the East End are on the lam in Brighton, with coppers chasing them up and down the seaside town’s amusement pier – so the thugs talk in unintelligibly complex cockney rhyming slang. Meanwhile a lawyer spouts sesquipedalian Latin, and a murderer who went to private school has his own upper-class lingo, glorious in its nonsensicality: “Buggerello!” he exclaims at one point, though the poshest of his curses is “Oh, foot and mouth!” Tongue-twisting cadenzas are developed by using alliteration, and the characters swap ever more elaborate lines in which virtually every word begins with the letter ‘d’. The appearance of a dish containing trout in almonds, or truite aux amandes, sets off a blinding firework display of polylingual puns.

The recurring jokes include a riff about Australia (with an additional put-down of Tasmania in one of Francis’ routines): I’m curious to know whether there will be some tactful cuts before these whimsies, which of course provoke automatic mirth in Britain, are tried out on audiences down under. Despite the verbal inventiveness, One Man, Two Guvnors would work just as efficiently if it were silent, or if Bean had left it in Goldoni’s Italian. Like the greatest Chaplin films, it’s about the inarticulate eloquence of the body, its urgent cravings and its sly semaphoring of thought and feeling. What if human beings defined themselves as animals who laugh, rather than creatures who reason and waste their time talking? Words matter less here than the body’s impertinent noises and its covert habits. After lunch, Francis indulges himself by farting, and there’s also a passage of mime where he illustrates the difference between the genders by mimicking their ways of peeing. Another repeated joke concerns a doddery octogenarian waiter who concusses himself as he attempts to uncork a bottle of wine, or struggles upstairs with a clattering soup tureen and then tumbles backwards into the stairwell.

No one on stage notices the little catastrophe, but we do, and we shriek with heartless merriment. Comedy is cruel: here is a little demonstration of Henri Bergson’s point that nothing could be funnier than watching someone else trip up. We laugh, Bergson said, because we are so terrified of our own precariousness, aware that our self-respect depends on our capacity to outwit gravity. But the ancient waiter has an almost rubberised resilience. Someone revives him by turning up the power switch on his pacemaker from three to nine, and – if you’re not weeping with laughter by this point – you watch a corpse run amok. In calmer moments, such as when a would-be actor caught up in the intrigue pauses to theorise about theatre, it is also a thoughtful piece. “Character is action,” says the thesp, called Orlando Dangle (although this is happening in 1963, so he rechristens himself Alan in the hope of being cast in gritty kitchen-sink dramas). Another character disagrees and cites the case of Hamlet, who spends five hours not performing the vindictive action that has been assigned to him.

But what’s more important for a play: motivation, or the sheer delight of acrobatic movement? Francis too reflects on his motives. In the first act, he’s impelled by hunger (which makes him gobble cheese from a mousetrap, motivating it to spring shut on his tongue) along with thirst (sated when he mixes the assorted dregs abandoned in a pub, pouring beer, fruit juice and a cigarette butt into a glass and heroically downing the lot). So what can kick-start his antics in the second act? He decides on the equally primal impetus of lust, and starts pursuing a dolly bird – as nubile young women were called in the sexist 1960s – who conveniently goes by the name of Dolly. Yet just when you think it’s all nothing but the automated puppetry of instinct, Dolly stops the show with a prophetic soliloquy that reveals she is more than one of the inflatable fantasies in the rude postcards described by Orwell. “You see how this play works?” Francis asks us near the end. One Man, Two Guvnors is forever exposing the fraudulence of the theatre, then gulling us into believing in the illusion all over again.

Hence two extended passages of improvisation, during which recruits from the audience – the front row is a perilous place to be – suffer appalling indignities on stage simply because, unluckily for them, they happen to be real people, not performers. The piece is wonderfully inane and at the same time unexpectedly profound: its whirligig plot hints at the mystery of a human identity that we watch being broken down and reformed in front of us. Francis has two masters but he is also two people: he magically duplicates himself, inventing an Irish alter ego whom he then impersonates. This requires a flurry of panicked exits and re-entrances, with a little jig from Riverdance thrown in whenever he reappears as Paddy. In reality, people with multiple personalities are psychotic; in the theatre, the affliction produces great art. Francis energetically exhibits his duality by having a fight with himself – a few minutes of supreme physiological virtuosity. Another character is disguised as her dead twin brother, prompting a little lecture on sperms fertilising eggs and the difference between mono- and dizygotes.

The biological aside explains our division into fractions or fragments, which are always yearning to be reunited with their sundered other halves – and that, as when two pairs of twins track each other through Ephesus in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, is what we witness here. On stage, individuals who have been at war with each other are merged at the end in a joyously tipsy extended family, with vendettas, murders and financial graft conveniently overlooked; in the audience, hundreds of strangers are united by their collective, contagious laughter. A skiffle band plays as we disperse, its refrain proclaiming what might be the gospel of comedy: “Tomorrow looks good to me.”

Question: Who played the lead role in the Richard Bean comedy 'One man, Two Guvnor's' in London, and has recently opened in the New York version?
Answer: JAMES CORDEN