What happens when you mash up
a playwright from 18th Century Venice,
The Who and the portly gent from Gavin and Stacey? To be honest if I didn't already know the answer I'm not sure I'd even be able to have a crack at a guess. But it's the National Theatre's new modernised production of
Servant of Two Masters, titled
One Man, Two Guv'nors.
If you're not down with both edges of the arc of this cultural swing, then the playwright is called Carlo Goldoni and this is probably his best known comedy, and the portly gent in question's name is
James Corden, who, as well as starring in and writing
Gavin & Stacey, was also one of
Alan Bennett's History Boys, which is the last play he appeared in at the National.
The reference to
The Who is more about their links to the film
Quadrophenia, set in a scootering, swinging yet gritty Brighton of the 60s. Which is where
Richard Bean, who's re-written the story, has set this servant soon to be of multiple masters.
Your man's name is Francis, and after being fired from his skiffle band he becomes the 'minder' of a small time East End crim, who's in Brighton to collect some money. Only the guv' isn't who he says he is, he's really his sister in disguise, the real guv' has actually been killed by his sister's boyfriend. But the dead guv' and the dead-guv's-sister who's pretending to be the guv' don't actually count as the two guv'nors – no the other guv' Francis hooks up with is the dead-guv's-sister's-boyfriend. If that sounds complicated then don't be put off. It's that sort of a play. The three main characters spend most of their time working at cross purposes to each other without really realising it, but doing a lot of very funny dialogue-ing in the process.
James and Nicholas Hytner, the director
For example:
Dead-guv's-sister: Are you seriously suggesting that we men, are, day to day, moment to moment, making thousands of small tactical decisions, the cumulative effect of which is to reduce the time between leg-overs?
Francis: I can't speak for you guv, but that is a fair description of my life.If you're concerned that buying tickets will risk inflating young James' ego to dangerous proportions then don't be. He's joined by a cast of equally strong, and funny performers, including the
Green Wing's Oliver Chris and
Trevor Laird, who played the drug dealer in
Quadrophenia. And it's directed by the National's own.
Add this to my todo list
