British comedy team recalled on Broadway

NEW YORK, April 16 (UPI) -- A classic British TV show starring comics Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise is recalled in a hilarious new Broadway production, "The Play What I Wrote," produced by Mike Nichols and skillfully directed by no less than Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh.

The comic play at the Lyceum Theater is an import from London with its British stars, the comedy team of Sean Foley and Hamish McColl, intact. The show won the coveted Olivier Award for best comedy last season and is likely to figure in the upcoming Broadway Tony Awards.

Foley and McColl, who have been a double act since 1987, wrote the show with an assist from Eddie Braben, a British comedy writer. It is a tribute to "The Morecambe and Wise Show" that flourished as a music hall-style variety series on British television in the 1960s and 1970s. Braben wrote for the show for 14 years.

Most Americans never heard of Morecambe and Wise, even though their show was regularly watched by half the population of the United Kingdom. But that shouldn't prevent them from enjoying the slapstick humor of "The Play What I Wrote" that tends to grow on even the most sophisticated theater-goer as the evening progresses. Prince Charles has been one of the show's most enthusiastic fans.

As an extra fillip, there is a nightly mystery guest star, who in the London production included Ralph Fiennes, Roger Moore, Ian McKellen, Twiggy and 30 others of their ilk. Moore has repeated as a guest star in New York along with such new recruits as Nathan Lane, Kevin Kline, Liam Neeson, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. All have been well-rehearsed and add celebrity sheen to the show's shenanigans.

"The Play What I Wrote" is a play within a play written by McColl in the hope of becoming a famous playwright (he has written 72 unproduced plays) so that he can sever his comedy team partnership with Foley. He is trying to get his drama about the French Revolution, titled "A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple," produced on Broadway with himself in the title role.

McColl is searching for a major star (the mystery guest) for the female supporting role. This gives the guest star a chance to dress up in a hoop skirt and white wig, act as silly as Foley and McColl, and endure a good-natured roasting that includes being confused with other personalities of the same name. Kevin Kline is mixed up with Patsy Cline and Calvin Klein and Roger Moore with Mary Tyler Moore to add to the inanity of their "auditions."

Nichols, the show's lead producer, also comes in for ribbing, being constantly referred to as "Mr. Tickles," a clown name. There also are visual references to Carmen Miranda in the form of fruit-laden headgear and one of James Thurber's huge cartoon dogs in the form of a lovable puppet.

The two stars of the show get an able assist from a third comic, Olivier Award-winner Toby Jones, who is recruited by Foley to convince McColl to stick with the act and bring it to Broadway instead of his play. This involves Jones impersonating showbiz personalities including Darryl Hannah, described as "half woman, half kipper," and Mr. Tickles.

All this ridiculous maneuvering involves patter songs, face-slappings, soft shoe routines, running gags, a guillotining followed by the reattachment of a head, bad jokes, worse puns, and plenty of double entendre. Foley, always the comic with a funny walk, and McColl, who plays straight man if anything in this show can be said to be straight, constantly address the audience and beg for responses.

Alice Power, who has worked as designer of sets and costumes for Foley and McColl since 1991, has re-invented the illuminated Hollywood stairway-to-the-stars for this production as well as a garden scene in which potted cacti magically grow into palm trees. Choreography by Irving Davies and Heather Cornell is appropriately zany, as are original songs by Gary Yershon.

However, it's Morecambe and Wise's original theme song that closes the show, and Brits in the audience sing along when they hear its familiar sentimental lyrics:

"Make me happy/ Through the years/ Never bring me/ Any tears/ Let your arms be as warm/ As the sun from up above/ Bring me fun/ Bring me sunshine/ Bring me love."