I generally felt that the play was too easy on the mind. It reminded me of a kid’s birthday party with a magician or clown using physical tricks and props to get easy laughs. It was too easy just to switch off, glaze over and watch – I felt as if I was slumped in front of a telly watching ITV or nothing in particular (well, ITV). I really wanted something that was going to engage me mentally far more and make me think about it.
The days of slapstick comedy and “My Mother in Law…” jokes died decades ago. Comedy now is about observing everyday situations, laughing at ourselves and exaggerating possibilities into the surreal and unknown. Comedy should make you think and keep your brain active and unlock things in the back of your mind. Instead, “The Play What I Wrote” just gave it some candy floss to sit and get fat on, no signs of stretching the imagination or creativity.
It is far more an achievement to get a capacity audience to split their sides by just one person and a microphone. There’s no relying on physical comedy, silly props or cheap one-liners. The power of words is far more effective than that. We’re living in the times of Billy Connolly shouting and swearing through riotous anecdotes and the surreal child-like world that Eddie Izzard creates around himself, totally turning the normal on it’s head.
I found it hard to follow what was going on half the time; the play didn’t seem to make any progress for itself and was based around a poorly written script with a plot looser than a loose thing that’s just graduated at the university of looseness with a 2:1 in being loose. Basically, the plot was loose. What really pushed it over the edge for me was when they actually did a Morecambe and Wise impersonation – even singing ‘Bring Me Sunshine’ and dressing up as them on a replica of the stage. Up until then they were just acting like them, I just found it a bit lame and boring when they chose to include that, it felt like they had ran out of ideas.
Alessi and Keaton seemed to lack the comedy and charisma that all duos have. They didn’t have the body language between them and seemed like such a miss-match. Fair enough Morecambe and Wise were a miss-match but that was in a good way – one playing a straight part and the other playing the slapstick part. However, Alessi and Keaton were both fighting too hard for the affection of the audience and tended to be as equally slapstick. As a pair I don’t even feel they would look right down the pub together, Keaton looked more like Alessi’s dad than his mate.
What surprises me even more is that the play has received excellent reviews from all sorts of papers from right wing mindless tabloids to left wing middle class pipe n slippers ‘The Independent’. What’s also suprising is the eagerness of so many big names to be involved in the show. Nigel Havers was at the performance we saw but past guests have included Sir Ian McKellen, Dawn French, Sting, Ewan McGregor, David Suchet and Roger Moore. I felt uncomfortable to see Havers play a fairly weak cameo role in a weak play. His agents must’ve been pretty desperate after the flop of ‘Manchild’! But it was a nice surprise even if it was a far cry from his performance in ‘Chariots of Fire’ (incidentally the only time I laughed was when Tony Sedgwick did the impression of him doing the ‘champagne on the hurdles’ scene from the film in slow motion. It was funny right down to the Vangellis soundtrack blaring away over the top. It was also the only part most of my friends didn’t laugh at!)
Overall ‘The Play What I Wrote’ lived up to what it was meant to do and pleased the target audience it was designed for. However, I felt it relied to much on physical props, cheap one-liners, corny punch lines, audience reaction and above all a style of nostalgic dated comedy that is totally out of place on the scene today. 1/10!