Play that’s still Dead Funny after a 20-year break
Dead Funny, the awardwinning show by Terry Johnson — and what I would call a proper comedy — is heading back to the West end, 20 years after it was launched at the Hampstead Theatre before being transferred to the Vaudeville.
In fact, the Vaudeville is where Dead Funny will run, with previews starting on October 27.
Johnson, who will direct his own show, has cast Katherine Parkinson as ellie, wife of Richard, a leading light in the fictional Dead Funny Society, a group in deepest suburbia that lauds dead comedians after two — Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd — die in the same year.
I remember seeing it at the Hampstead and when I chatted over the phone with theatre owner and producer nica Burns, I was reminded of what a sublimely crafted piece it is. Part of the gag is that ellie is actually far funnier than her husband (who’ll be played by Rufus Jones) and his fellow Society members.
The revival, which is being produced by Burns, Paula marie Black and emma Brunjes, will also star Ralf little, emily Berrington and league Of Gentlemen star Steve Pemberton.
ms Burns described the play as a ‘love letter to comedians of a genre long gone now’, featuring everything from custard pie fights to one-liners.
She made an interesting point about Benny Hill and his routines involving pretty, scantily clad girls, suggesting that women today, who ‘own their bodies’, might react differently to such gags.