Laurel and Hardy

Published Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 14:10 by Ben Sharratt

It’s more than 30 years since Tom McGrath wrote this play and more than 40 since Stan Laurel, the duo’s driving creative force, died. However, Ben Fox and Christian Patterson’s exhaustingly accurate portrayals of Laurel and Hardy merely serve as a reminder that the best of the best never age.

Physically, Fox pulls off a quite incredible impersonation of Laurel. Vocally, Patterson does the best Oliver Hardy you will ever hear. Together, their chemistry is never less than spellbinding, whether conveying the joy Laurel and Hardy got from making people laugh or the despair both suffered through early career struggles, ill-conceived marriages and bad business decisions.

This performance offered up an unexpected case of art imitating life (or is it the other way round?) as a couple of well-meaning but over-enthusiastic audience members, sitting right under the actors’ noses, put Fox and Patterson in real danger of being completely thrown off course. To their immense credit, they remained focused while the rest of us squirmed behind our Maltesers. In the flea pit theatres and flop film sets that bookended Laurel and Hardy’s careers - and which this production examines with such heartfelt tenderness - they suffered similar affronts to their professional pride. It was all strangely fitting - and eventually dealt with calmly but firmly by New Wolsey staff.

Imaginative use of documentary footage and recorded film soundbites adds to the cornucopia of biographical detail and pianist Greg Palmer’s score is a delight. There is, to put it simply, nothing about this show that does not make your eyes well up with either laughter or tears. Fox and Patterson strain every muscle, draw on every dramatic emotion, in order to tell one of comedy’s greatest stories. They achieve it with empathy, immense energy and panache. I take my bowler hat off to them.