I hold fond memories of watching Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s pieces on television as a child. Their conceit of the hapless and blundering joker messing things up for his pompous and dominant friend was a simple one that translates to and resonates with audiences of all contexts.Lucky Dog Theatre Productions have recreated this formula, utilising it to convey the story of how Laurel and Hardy rose to fame. Interspersed with musical numbers, the piece is told in retrospect from the perspective of Laurel and Hardy’s stage personas.
To start with, the depictions of Laurel (Tony Carpenter) and Hardy (Philip Hutchinson) are uncanny. The attention to detail in the emulation of this screen duo is evident throughout and evokes a feeling of warmth and familiarity that is hard to convey when portraying such icons. Despite this success, most of the piece lacks direction and is unavoidably flat.
With two players sporting wigs, hats and other pieces to differentiate between various characters that serve the biographies of the protagonists, it’s very easily to get confused about who is who. This confusion is compounded by a narrative that hurriedly switches back and forth between setting, place and context. The songs, of which there are relatively few, are not memorable and serve as filler to and already haphazard story.
These aforementioned issues have been accentuated, rather than remedied, by the direction. The actors often masked each other on stage and the fast paced dialogue was delivered in a manner that left the audience behind. The performers also had a limited understanding of the way in which a stage is lit. As a result, many scenes were delivered with the action almost entirely in shadow. The theatre spectator is a notoriously lazy beast and, having to put so much effort into what is supposed to be a relatively straight-forward piece, this lead to an inevitable loss of interest.
Fundamentally, “Laurel and Hardy” attempts to provide context to two careworn caricatures. This is an almost impossible task within this piece’s constraints and leaves for a shallow and dull viewing experience.
