Theatre: One Man Two Guvnors

[Toison]

Went to see One Man Two Guvnors last night in London. Great comedy and some fantastic splosh live before my eyes!

The scene is very clever in that it is played as audience participation. In fact it is an actress playing a fictional audience member called Christine Patterson who is brought on stage to help with a comic dinner scene. All played for laughs.

She plays nervous and pretending to hate being on stage. She is wearing a smart evening dress. The splosh comes in a scene when the lead character is preparing dessert and pours liquor over a crepe wanting to flame it. At this moment Christine has been hidden under the table with the crepe placed on top. When liquor is lit there is a huge flame and they pull poor Christine from under the table thinking she is also alight.

As she is pulled out she is then pushed back against a door and one of the characters throws a big jug of water all over her. Almost immediately another character appears with a fire extinguisher and literally covers her in foam head to toe! At this point a fictional technician arrives on stage to take Christine away and its then the interval.

The scene is fantastic not just for the awesome sploshing but that the audience really thinks it was a genuine audience member. In fact a few scenes earlier they did have real audience participation so through the interval you can hear people discussing whether it was an actress or not - some people were convinced it was an audience member. The acting was very good. It is only confirmed as an actress at the end when she takes a bow with the rest of the cast while wearing a dressing gown having obviously showered!

I found on the web that there were actually two ensemble actresses alternating the Christine Patterson role. One called Clare Thomson and another Polly Conway who is on twitter and amazingly posted the attached photo. https://twitter.com/#!/poldonger

One Man Two Guvnor's just finished its first run in London featuring James Corden but a new run is about to begin straight away in March with new cast and also it will go to Broadway for anyone in New York.

http://www.onemantwoguvnors.com/

Needless to say well worth seeing this one!

[Squelch]

That sounds like an excellent slapstick scene

[Toison]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexF5iH6iyE

Not the best quality vid but you can get the theme. Actress, pretending to be from the audience has water thrown over her and then foamed down. Awesome scene especially as its live! The actress is back on stage at the end for the curtain call.

Still on in London if you want to catch it.

[BillShipton]

Thanks a lot for this. You can't beat a bit of live slapstick.