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One Man Two Guvnors Review

 

This modern styled commedia dell’arte - linked comedy production was performed at the Theatre Royal located in Newcastle. Upon arrival you are taken away by the beautiful building and its strong foothold within the centre of this thriving city. From the moment you enter to taking your seat there is an overwhelming feeling of classic theatre and elegance. The question is whether the show itself will live up to the surroundings it’s staged in.

 The show is set in Brighton and the year is 1963and is an adaptation of a different show, One Servant Two Masters by Goldino. The main role ‘Francis Henshall’ is played by the famous comedian Rufus Hound, who lived upto expectation and did not let the audience down. From the start to finish the whole cast had the audience laughing and smiling with slapstick comedy and humorous jokes,occasionally throwing in a shocking surprise.

 The show starts slowly with an engagement party for Pauline Clench. A childish, dozy yet pretty young woman and Alan Dangle a dramatic wannabe actor who lives his whole life as if it’s is on stage. While the party discuss the possible suspects of a local murder, we are introduced to Francis Henshall. A character we automatically feel pity for but are humoured by at the same time, as we follow his journey scrimping and saving for food and money. It soon becomes evident that this sneaky southerner is easily confused and this is confirmed with each progressing minute of the performance.

In one of Francis’ scenes we see his confusion get the better of him as he starts talking to himself, gradually getting angrier and angrier before reaching breaking point and then starts beat himself up. This worked really well as we could see two sides of him. It was almost like we knew what was going to happen and when it did happen it ended up being really funny. This then expands to a typical chase scene which involves himself, an old woman and a police man. The characters chase each other off and on stage from different directions using cast doubles to enhance the scene. This was a very intelligent part of the show and even though it was obvious that it was different people playing these characters it made it even funnier.

Again his confusion gets him into trouble and he ends up working with two different guvnors. Who in the meantime  are hiding away from a serious crime that they have both been involved in. One guvnor being a woman in disguise as her brother and the other guvnor is in fact the woman’s lover. They are both on the run from the police but at the same time are trying to find each other without knowing they both have hired Francis as their messenger. The production ends with a happy ending and the two guvnors are reunited. Then with a fortunate turn of events we see the once unfortunate Francis turn his luck around.

Throughout the whole performance we are introduced with different characters that also bring humour to the show. My favourite being an old fragile waiter that has been told to help Francis serve his two guvnors but finds himself walking into doors, bashed in the head with swingy doors and also getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. I could tell that the routines had been practiced to perfection as they performed their scenes with split second precision.

The audience laughed at the right times, were shocked at the right times and the scenes also involved some interaction the audience.  In one scene we are introduced to a lady that Francis picks out from the audience. This makes the scene even funnier as she was made to hide around the stage with food for Francis and at the end she ended up getting sprayed in the face with a fire extinguisher. During the bows the audience then knew she was part of the cast. This worked really well as it gave a huge shock factor and made the audiences laughter ever more present. I would also pick this lady to be one of the best actresses in this show for fooling us all as an audience member as she played it really well. 

Throughout this performance the production keeps the audience on the edge of their seats even with the scene changes happening. They would bring on their very own band on stage and sing songs that fit in with the era. The instruments that they played fit in well and so did the costumes.I would describe the band as the shows orchestra as they played at the beginning of the show, the end of act one, beginning of act two and also for the finale. The music that they played was of a swinging 60’s fashion with banjos, guitars, scrappers and the added prop of a typical 60’s microphone. People would recognise this band as a ‘Skiffle’ band. A Skiffle band can include music with jazz, blues, folk and roots influences and the instruments that they used would be homemade or improvised such as washboard, jugs, kazoo, saw, comb and paper and of course the guitars and Banjos.

Also to keep the comedy flowing the characters would have their time to play an instrument with a humorous element, such as Stanley Stubbers character played a tune with ten different horns. At a different scene change Francis Henshall played a large glockenspiel very impressively. These performances were even funnier as it had nothing to do with the story line.

The set was another impressive side of this production as they only had three different scene changes but it fitted in really well with the scenes as it gave us all a great impression and very good detail where they are in terms of location . One main thing about this performance that I thought was really impressive is that they included the audience throughout the whole production from bringing them on, shouting out questions, waiting for answers to just talking to us comfortably and in general having a great time. It was as if the characters knew who we were so audience interaction would be one of the shows strong points.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this show. The production was very humorous and clever with the jokes, slapstick, cast and set. Throughout the show I understood everything that was happening which is a very important part of putting a show together. This would be thanks to the cast being a very professional team. One man two guvnors was very entertaining and I would recommend anyone to go watch it.

Hayley Thompson.