Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Roy Brandon, Michael Starke, Lori Haley Fox, Penelope Woodman, Matt Connor, Jonathan Markwood.
The distinctive music, the sight of two comedy greats on stage giving the audience a laugh and great entertainment in two different settings and somehow transported in time from the golden age of Hollywood comedy to the 21st Century comedy central of the Royal Court in Liverpool. Such is how nights of class are made and in the iconic Laurel and Hardy film Sons of The Desert, recently given such status as warranting to be preserved forever in the American National Congress, they don’t come much bigger, then again, it can always be given a new lick of paint and introducing to a newer audience.
The evening was split into two halves, with the kind of variety show audiences would have found themselves enjoying during Laurel and Hardy’s first joint trip to Britain in the 1930s making up the first act and in which Michael Starke and Roy Brandon took the Royal Court audience through their paces in one of the more unforgettable and impressive scenes and accompanied by the rest of the players.
The second act though embellished the legend even further with the combination of 21st Century theatre know-how, superb comic timing and unbelievably superb mimicry by the two main actors and the knowledge that something just that little bit special was going on stage. Remarkable maybe, but in Michael Starke and Roy Brandon you wouldn’t expect anything less.
The only way the Royal Court Theatre could have done anymore to invoke the feel, the intoxicating and heady aroma of having two of the finest comedy legends the world has ever seen being performed by two of Liverpool’s own fraternity of comedy greats, was to have the audience dress in the style of the pre and post war years in which the pair made their way to Britain. Nothing else could have matched that feel, for the two men would have surely have marvelled at the sight of Roy Brandon and Michael Starke giving an absolute incredible and sincere version of themselves, perhaps more so than anybody could have ever envisioned.
Sons of The Desert should not be the first and last venture in which the global stars of the 20th Century get to have their memories restored, if this production proves anything, there is more than an appetite for this type of variety show/faithful reproduction to continue beyond 2013 and thankfully in the case of Laurel and Hardy, so many films they can re-imagine.
Hats Off to all at the Royal Court, to Roy Brandon and Michael Starke, the show certainly knew how to leave ‘Em laughing, not be seen as Saps At Sea and that in the end comedy is Thicker Than Water.
Timeless!
Ian D. Hall