From the poster (see above) I hadn't the foggiest what this was about. With no knowledge at all of the original Ealing Comedy film, I was largely drawn to "The Ladykillers" by its cast and creative team. Written by Graham Linehan and starring a whole host of British comedy excellence, this looked very promising. As it turns out, "The Ladykillers" is exactly my cup of tea.
A comedy thriller with a heady dose of gore, if watching six of the Nation's finest comedians eat scenery (amazing scenery) sounds good then you will not be disappointed. Peter Capaldi turns in a ludicrously overblown performance, liberally spitting on the front row and hamming it up to the nth degree. In many shows he would overwhelm but here he slots right in. The set itself (when not being chewed on, which isn't often) is an absurdly wonderful, off-kilter, multi-leveled house that produces various elegant magic tricks and revolves to reveal a series of exteriors including an unbelievably witty heist sequence.
I don't really want to spoil the plot. It starts from the premise that an eclectic group of criminals are planning a robbery from the spare room of a dotty old lady, played by Marcia Warren, but takes a series of turns that are both riveting and hysterical. The physical comedy comes thick and fast, a recurring joke with a rotating blackboard sidesplittingly funny, whilst the verbal dialogue is riddled with awful puns that you'll still find yourself giggling at. The evening reaches its laughter apotheosis in the middle with a brilliant musical scene, the second half then turns bleaker and blacker with magical effects rendering violence as theatrical gold.
Aside from Capaldi the cast all compete in the funny stakes. Ben Miller does a tidy line in silly accents whilst Clive Rowe plays completely against type as the totally dimwitted One Round. James Fleet dithers in the grandest of English traditions whilst Stephen Wight gets smacked in the face at regular intervals and manages to be the most endearingly innocent criminal you could imagine. Warren is the glue that binds the evening together, her moral indignity paired with adorable confusion is entirely lovable.
"The Ladykillers" will put few demands on your brain but it's a good laugh while it lasts. For sheer laughter, "Noises Off" and "One Man, Two Guvnors" have it beat, but there's always room for more farce and any other year this would be the funniest thing going. Head on down to the Gielgud for a good old fashioned romp.
(Review of Performance on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at the Gielgud Theatre)
I don't really want to spoil the plot. It starts from the premise that an eclectic group of criminals are planning a robbery from the spare room of a dotty old lady, played by Marcia Warren, but takes a series of turns that are both riveting and hysterical. The physical comedy comes thick and fast, a recurring joke with a rotating blackboard sidesplittingly funny, whilst the verbal dialogue is riddled with awful puns that you'll still find yourself giggling at. The evening reaches its laughter apotheosis in the middle with a brilliant musical scene, the second half then turns bleaker and blacker with magical effects rendering violence as theatrical gold.
Aside from Capaldi the cast all compete in the funny stakes. Ben Miller does a tidy line in silly accents whilst Clive Rowe plays completely against type as the totally dimwitted One Round. James Fleet dithers in the grandest of English traditions whilst Stephen Wight gets smacked in the face at regular intervals and manages to be the most endearingly innocent criminal you could imagine. Warren is the glue that binds the evening together, her moral indignity paired with adorable confusion is entirely lovable.
"The Ladykillers" will put few demands on your brain but it's a good laugh while it lasts. For sheer laughter, "Noises Off" and "One Man, Two Guvnors" have it beat, but there's always room for more farce and any other year this would be the funniest thing going. Head on down to the Gielgud for a good old fashioned romp.
(Review of Performance on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at the Gielgud Theatre)
1 comments:
Glad you were oblivious to the original as most of us older ones just couldnt get the idea of it adding anything to the original out of our minds. I suggest you catch up with it one cold foggy day when you are back in New York. Good to get your comments on Uk shows - London's loss is New Yorks gain....
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