Comedy treat in store – with a special guest

WHOOPS and cheers of delight greeted the appearance onstage of actor Tom Hiddleston at the opening performance in Bath this week of The Play What I Wrote.

Hiddleston (star of BBC series The Night Manager, and Loki in the film Thor from Marvel Studios) was the surprise guest in the play, now on a UK tour to celebrate 20 years since its premiere and a record-breaking run in London’s West End.

An homage to double act Morecambe and Wise, The Play What I Wrote was written by Hamish McColl and Sean Foley – the latter now directs this new production – and draws on the work of Eddie Braben, scriptwriter extraordinaire for the comic duo for 14 years.

Just like the original TV shows, there is a play within a play and every show features a mystery guest star who will appear on stage at various performances. Other possible guests during the run in Bath include actor Charles Dance and TV favourite Sue Holderness.

The play centres on a failing comic double act – played by Dennis Herdman and Thom Tuck – who are offered a gig as a Morecambe and Wise tribute show. Thom, however, is desperate to put on his own new play, an epic set in the French Revolution called A Tight Squeeze for The Scarlet Pimple.

But first they have to find a guest star who will appear in it.

Meanwhile they rehearse their act in a fast-paced comedy performance that is full of original gags, wordplay and slapstick that owe much to the original scripts.

Playing alongside is Mitesh Soni as the fall guy Arthur, and butt of the running joke ‘Not Now Arthur’ in the later BBC series as he tries to play his harmonica. Soni also performs several cameo roles that include Hollywood

stars, a dog, Tom Hiddleston as Loki and, singlehandedly, a crowd of Frenchmen (terrific puppeteering).

It all romps hilariously along but the comedy reaches dizzying new heights in the second act when Hiddleston – variously misnamed as Ken Livingstone, Trevor Huddleston and others – takes to the stage for his role in The Scarlet Pimple.

His double-takes as he tries – as a serious actor – to deliver deliberately terrible lines cause the audience to

roar with laughter, as does a dance in which he kicks up his heels and flounces his skirts (by then dressed much like a pantomime dame) in a chorus line finale.

But it’s not just the guest star who enlivens the comedy, rather the spot-on comic interaction between them all. Herdman and Tuck step into the roles of Eric and Ernie, insulting and sending up their guest in this brilliant pastiche of the BBC Christmas shows. The props are great, featuring baguette fights, some amazing extending arms and a row of skeletons performing the cancan. The whole show is a standalone comedy treat, but bringing with it some well-remembered sunshine and laughter in this wonderful tribute to Eric and Ernie.

The Play What I Wrote is on at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday, January 22. Call the box office on 01225 448844 or go online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk

Picture: Geraint Lewis Dennis Herdman as Dennis, Tom Hiddleston as himself and Thom Tuck as Thom