‘Laurel and Hardy’

Royal Lyceum Theatre - 07/06/22

I don’t normally review theatre in the EMR, although our Highland correspondent regularly does in her patch. However learning that last night was press night at the Lyceum for ‘Laurel and Hardy’ I managed to get a press ticket and justified it by saying that of course ‘Laurel and Hardy’ had music in the show. Indeed some of us tried to sing along with the ‘Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia’ last night! The truth is that I saw this play in Dundee 17 years ago and enjoyed it and wondered whether it had stood the test of time.

‘Laurel and Hardy’ was written by Scottish playwright Tom McGrath and first performed at the Traverse theatre in the Grassmarket in 1976, with Scottish legend Kenny Ireland playing Hardy and John Shedden playing Laurel. There is a very good article by Scotland’s leading theatre critic, Joyce Macmillan, in ‘The Scotsman’ about the play and the current production at the Lyceum. She also interviews Steve McNicoll and Barnaby Power in the current production, who importantly played it in the last production in 2005. They were in their thirties when they first played the parts around the age Laurel and Hardy were when they first became famous and now in their fifties when they began to decline. Did they manage to recreate the characters as well as they did originally in 2005? Well the Guardian’s Scottish theatre critic Mark Fisher gave the 2005 show a brilliant five star review then which brought it back to me and I will be interested to see how Mark and Joyce treat the first night in their reviews. Theatre critics never like to talk about the play until they have written their reviews, so I didn’t ask them last night, but I have no such inhibitions and widely canvassed spectator opinion last night and it was pretty universally favourable. However a young Asian couple next to me failed to return after the interval and I wonder whether a younger audience would enjoy it as much as the predominantly older first night audience. We after all grew up with Laurel and Hardie films and of course many of us have recently seen the film about Stan and Olly which refreshed our memories.

This production told the story with a simple grey set and some props. They had a very good pianist, Jon Beales, providing musical accompaniment. Steve McNicoll as Oliver Hardy and Barnaby Power as Stan Laurel took us back to those magic slapstick days of the 1930s. It was a story of where they came from. They both had strong Scottish connections: Oliver Hardy with a Scottish grandmother and Stan Laurel being brought up in Glasgow. It was the tale of how they got together and became famous in film in the 1930s and a story of decline afterwards. It was told though words and through music, although I thought the music could have been a stronger element, maybe encouraging a singalong with the words for “The Lonesome Pine” being displayed to help us. It was told through slapstick, in particular the wallpaper sketch with great timing and humour. Was it as good as 17 years ago? I’m not sure but then maybe I’ve changed since then; for one thing I work as a critic and it’s the critic’s job to be critical. There were things like the music which could have been better. Overall though, it is a lovely evening and as one friend put it to me afterwards “at this time of heavy events it is good to see a show that makes us laugh”. Laurel and Hardy will certainly make you laugh. Go and see. It’s on till the 25th of June at the Lyceum.