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  From Morecambe Bay to Broadway

  ‘My most special memory of Morecambe is the day the whole town came to see me off—and told me never to come back.’

  As a kid Eric could only dream of the bright lights of Broadway. That, one day in the distant future, a November night in 2001, there would be a play about his (and his partner’s) life on a West End stage would have been incomprehensible.

  The Play What I Wrote, in its initial concept, was an idea of mine, along with writer Martin Sterling and West End producer David Pugh. We wanted to stage a tribute to the legendary double act. It might well have remained just a drawing-board notion had it not been for The Right Size, a comedy team with a great stage track record, coming up with the initiative of writing a play about their own lives in which they happen to become like Eric and Ernie as they go about performing their own tribute to them. And so a potentially good idea turned into a well-executed reality. When actordirector Kenneth Branagh agreed to direct the project, adding West End credibility to the production, the final piece of the jigsaw was in place. And if that wasn’t good enough, the play was destined to transfer to New York after a staggeringly successful run at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre.

  Ken Branagh had an early introduction to the world of Morecambe and Wise. ‘When I was fourteen,’ he told a journalist in 2002, ‘I wrote to Morecambe and Wise to ask for tickets for one of their TV shows. The letter that came back was one of the first ever addressed to me at my house. It had BBC stamped at the top of the envelope, and as I ran downstairs to collect it, my brother, who was in particularly bullying mode at the time, was so completely intrigued, he actually opened it.

  ‘Inside was a signed photograph. And although there were no tickets left, and I never got to see Morecambe and Wise live, I still have the photo to this day.’

  Ken was fascinated by them from watching them on TV. ‘I vividly remember a documentary about Morecambe and Wise,’ he recalls, ‘and I couldn’t imagine anything more exciting than seeing what Morecambe and Wise did, and how they actually did it.’

  The play was first tested at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. ‘We did a lot of “dying” in Liverpool,’ says Ken, through a wry smile. ‘It wasn’t right at that time. Hamish [McColl, who portrays the Ernie part of the duo] swore that the answer to making it work was to have Sean wear Eric’s glasses. So for one show we did this and planned some more Eric-like business to be going on—and it was a disaster! Total disaster!

  ‘Audiences weren’t having it, even though it was one inch closer to being Eric. The audience somehow needed to see the play through a kind of prism—through someone else’s physicality.

  ‘It took the whole month in Liverpool to work out the shape for this homage; this affectionate presentation of Eric and Ernie.’

  The run on the West End stage, and the wonderful list of guest stars who appeared in the show, reached a natural conclusion, but as is so often the case with Morecambe and Wise, so much seems to continue happening with them each passing year despite both having left us some time ago. Broadway is the biggest development in the history of the show.

  Catching up for lunch with Ken some six years since we worked together on the project, it was wonderful to find his enthusiasm for both Morecambe and Wise and the play itself had not remotely diminished.

  ‘In Hamish [McColl], Sean [Foley] and Toby’s [Jones, who played myriad roles in the production] performances you have the perfect degree of ego and neurosis that keeps it edgy and really challenging,’ he explains. ‘Because Hamish and Sean as The Right Size had been together a long time with their own successful partnership prior to the production meant that they were bringing something to it which was way beyond re-creation of Morecambe and Wise. You need to have performers who come out of a similar kind of box—hard-working and talented as the act they are paying homage to.’

  We discussed the first night, and all of us associated with the play were very nervy that day as tickets had gone on sale to little reaction. ‘One of the things I remember about that first night in London,’ says Ken, ‘was the quality of the audience—all these “names” dotted around the auditorium—and feeling this huge desire for it to go well.

  ‘When I saw Bruce Forsyth several times leaning forward doubled up with laughter, I felt so relieved. No disrespect to Bruce Forsyth, but comedians aren’t normally regarded for their generosity to other comedians, so I took it as a very good omen that Bruce was clearly loving it.’

  It was the first night success and subsequent reviews that brought about its almost immediate success.

  But taking it to Broadway was always going to be a very different venture. Ken Branagh had some reservations about Broadway from the outset, which were echoed by me, The Right Size and Toby Jones.

  ‘It was always going to be a challenge taking the play on to Broadway,’ explains Ken, diplomatically. ‘Despite a well-worked script and the comedic skills of Hamish, Sean and Toby, what it lacked in New York that it never had lacked in the UK in its West End life and various touring productions was a massive level of affection.

  ‘In a sense, Eric and Ern hijacked Christmas, but it was the most beautiful piece of hijacking.’

  ‘To the audiences in the UK it went way beyond finding Eric and Ernie funny; it was the whole nostalgia their memory and reputation brought to the stage production. As well as being genuinely, unmistakably on the highest level funny, Morecambe and Wise’s best work coincided with moments in the life of the nation—especially Christmas—when everyone was together. Symbolically they came to represent that togetherness.

  ‘In a sense, Eric and Ern hijacked Christmas, but it was the most beautiful piece of hijacking that meant that at that moment when the people of the nation were together they were simultaneously finding themselves associated with Morecambe and Wise’s comedy.’

  Opening on Broadway would be less about Morecambe and Wise and more about the camaraderie of all double acts. I understood the logic behind the decision, but was concerned that by removing the spirit of Morecambe and Wise we were removing the whole purpose of why we originally set out to stage the show.

  The general feeling was that many theatregoers who came to see the West End production were American, Japanese, Chinese, and other, and they enjoyed it enormously, laughing their way out into the Covent Garden night when the curtain came down. I wasn’t convinced about that: surely, I thought, its success was due to the feelgood factor of Eric and Ernie working on those mostly British members of successive audiences who remembered Christmases past? That invisible awareness was actively, if unwittingly, being sucked up by those in the audience not in the least bit familiar with Eric and Ernie or their work. In New York that would not be possible as there would be no such underlying sentiment.

  I must credit David Pugh for having the balls to give it a whirl, as it was his reputation and money on the line. And—if in hugely diluted form—he did get Morecambe and Wise introduced to a much wider audience.

  Decisions can be made quickly—if rashly—in the entertainment business I discovered, and in February 2003 one relatively under-utilized consultant to the US production was flown out in first-class style to join the team as the opening night loomed. My mother, Joan, was also to be there for that night, which, while it was expected, was a bit discomforting given that her husband—half the raison d’être of the London production—had inevitably been reduced from being the play’s subject to appearing in the programme notes.

  My mother and I were put up at the colourful Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, a spit from Times Square. The reason I mention this hotel with a hint of admiration is because one of my great heroes, Harpo Marx, a gentleman and a giant of visual comedy, many decades back would frequent the place to play cards with some of his mates: screenwriter Robert Benchley (father of Peter Benchley, who gave us the novel Jaws!) and poet, critic, and short-story writer Dorothy Parker, to name but two. They and others formed an exclusive club, th
e Round Table, to pursue their delight in gambling, intellectual conversation and dry wit. The only rule seemed to be that you had to be able to take the knocks—there was no room for taking offence or acting self-important. Harpo was invited to join this elite club by his good friend the critic Alexander Woollcott. As some people get excited by treading the well-worn paths that Eric Morecambe trod, I get the same thrill from being in the vicinity of where a Marx Brother stood, walked, talked, breathed, laughed, cried, and anything else they might have done, especially when it is my favourite Marx Brother, the mute and blond, curly-locked Harpo—not that he was either of those things in real life, of course. And I was doubly blessed when discovering the theatre we were opening at was the Lyric—the very same theatre the Marx Brothers had opened at with the musical The Cocoanuts many decades earlier.

  One of the first people my mother and I stumbled across at the Algonquin was actor Roger Moore and his wife Kristina. Roger had been the stalwart guest star of the London production. I don’t think any guest star made as many appearances. He even guest-starred in towns such as Milton Keynes on a wet Wednesday afternoon while the play toured for a while. A long way from his homes in Monaco and Switzerland. Although he wasn’t due to appear on the opening night on Broadway—‘They don’t think I’m famous enough!’ he told us with his usual disarming charm—he did guest on many subsequent nights there, in between which he would fly all round the world doing his sterling work for the United Nations Children’s Fund. In fact this fast and furious lifestyle was to prove a little too much for a man who was in his mid-seventies at the time. During one of the Broadway performances Roger blacked out on stage. The audience thought it was part of the show. Eventually he came round, still on stage, to find Hamish McColl (who loosely represents Ernie Wise in the play) standing above him. ‘Are you all right, old boy?’ asked Hamish. ‘I think so, old boy,’ replied Roger, who then insisted on finishing that night’s performance before being transferred to hospital by the paramedics who had been summoned immediately and were waiting in the wings.

  ‘During one of the Broadway performances Roger blacked out on stage. The audience thought it was part of the show.’

  It was at this point in that particular Roger Moore story that on a visit to London I began my conversation with Hamish McColl, the actor and co-writer of the play, and co-founder of The Right Size. We quickly realized it had been nearly five years since we last got together, and that had been in New York.

  Hamish, who is currently not acting but writing—he wrote the hugely successful movie Mr Bean’s Holiday for Rowan Atkinson—started out by recalling that event which shocked us all and was big news in the tabloid press in Britain.

  ‘There were so many highs in that play,’ said Hamish, ‘but the biggest low was definitely when Roger collapsed right next to us on stage. It was frightening because he dropped like a tree being felled. He hit the ground and didn’t move. We were terrified. We thought he was dead. It was one of those moments when I couldn’t think of any bright improvisation line, so just started waving my arms around and shouting out “close the curtains”. He’s an absolute trooper. He sat up and insisted on finishing the performance, then went off to hospital to have his pacemaker fitted. Two days later he was attending a big function for UNICEF.’

  And the next night of the play after Roger had been taken away sick?

  ‘Alan Alda, most famous for his role in M. A. S. H., stepped in and was brilliant,’ explained Hamish. ‘What made it work so well with him was the fact that his parents had been vaudevillians. He would watch the first half of the show from the wings, and I think he was the only guest star who did that. Normally they just made their entrance in the second half.’

  Apparently Roger’s daughter, Deborah, had told Hamish that her father was terrified of doing the play. Also, Hamish said, ‘Ken [Branagh] told me when we were still at the rehearsal stage that the higher the status of the star the more terrified they will be. That was a very good tip. Roger played it pretty much like he was Prince Rainier of Monaco, when he first arrived. It was the blazer and dark glasses and not very communicative approach. Of course you could misread this and think that he was being deliberately aloof, but it transpired that he was just terrified about appearing in the play. When we got to know him he could not have been nicer. He was charming; he went on to do the show countless times both in the UK and the States, his wife always accompanying him. Wonderful. And I also went out to Switzerland and saw them there and was made very welcome.’

  It was fascinating to hear Hamish’s own thoughts on something to which he was integral in making it such a huge success. Our previous times together had been while the play was up and running, so until now we hadn’t had the opportunity for this dispassionate ‘with hindsight’ overview of what that remarkably exciting period for all of us involved had been about. And, as consultant to the production, my role was firstly to nit-pick the script and later their performances in respect of their adopting, and consistently sustaining, the Morecambe and Wise feel in their delivery and actions. Obviously what was needed of me was to bring to the production any knowledge that being Eric Morecambe’s son and self-acclaimed know-all and walking A-Z on Morecambe and Wise gave me. This was essentially the role I had planned for myself back in the midnineties when first discussing the project with David Pugh.

  The play would continue for several years right up to April 2007, but by then without its creators and performers Hamish McColl and Sean Foley. And what a list of guest stars had during that time graced their production: Ioan Gruffudd, Denise Van Outen, Charles Dance, George Cole, Simon Callow, Nigel Havers, Sue Johnston, Dawn French, Michael Starke, Ralph Fiennes, Richard E. Grant, Sting, Bob Geldof, Roger Moore, Kylie Minogue, Cilla Black, Maureen Lipman, Richard Wilson, David Suchet, Ewan McGregor—and they’re just the ones that readily spring to mind. Madonna came to see it, as did Pierce Brosnan, and both showed positive interest. But time passed quickly and before the availability of either could be confirmed, Sean and Hamish’s production was over.

  ‘I can’t watch any of the new productions of it,’ Hamish admits with a hint of melancholy. ‘Not after my involvement. The strangest thing of all was preparing the scripts for the first new cast. There came that point where I had to press the button which erased all our names—Me, Sean and Toby [Jones]—and replace them with the new cast. We were gone!’

  I can’t help agreeing with Hamish when he says, ‘My personal feeling is that it could have run another year in the West End, it was such a big success and an award-winner. But it’s always something we could bring back to the West End in due course.’

  The idea of the play making a return in its original form with the original team is an intriguing one considering that Hamish and Sean had gone their separate ways after a remarkable seventeen years together. ‘Not nearly as long as Eric and Ernie were together,’ Hamish said, ‘but still a considerable time.’ Was this a consequence of doing the play together? I wondered.

  ‘Not at all,’ Hamish was quick to point out. ‘We both had other things we wanted to try out. It was just time for change. And as I say, we would reunite for The Play What I Wrote, should that opportunity resurface.’

  Hamish shares my misgivings about taking what was primarily a play about the spirit of Morecambe and Wise over to New York, where they were hardly known.

  ‘You say they are the spirit of the play; I would go further and say the entire soul of it,’ he said. ‘It became a different show. It became a show about a double act in crisis and their need to stay together, but it didn’t have that crucial emotional resonance that it had in the purely Eric and Ernie version in Britain. And you underestimate those things at your peril. Morecambe and Wise were the blood-line of the piece, and it made it much more difficult for us in America. We still got a lot of laughs, and good audiences showed up—we were never below half-full—but you sensed that vital connection to the audience was missing.

  ‘That was the magic thing about Eric an
d Ernie that made us want to do the play in the first place. Actually,’ he corrected himself, ‘it was what made us not want to do it at the outset. I mean, how can you go out and imitate an icon act like Morecambe and Wise? Until we found that device of it being about us as a way to do them, it wasn’t feasible.’

  I can relate to this, of course, as I’d spent several years having the same discussions with David Pugh. Quickly we recognized that a pure imitation was not a possible way to execute the idea of a tribute to Morecambe and Wise.

  After the low moment with Roger being taken to hospital halfway through a Broadway performance, what was for Hamish the high moment of the months spent in the West End, then on Broadway, and later on tour in the UK?

  ‘I have many,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘If we’re talking guest stars, and there were very, very few who didn’t really cut the mustard, then I suppose that you can name them on the basis of audience reaction. Firstly, we had Toby always on the side of the stage doing an impression of the guest star that then quietly walks on to the stage from the other wing. Some got muted applause, some good applause and some huge applause. But if they were a massive name, then you got a momentary pause during which the audience is thinking, can this really be them? Roger Moore was in this last category and also Sting, Kylie Minogue, Ewan McGregor, and Richard E. Grant. Richard did the show lots of times, a bit like Roger. John McEnroe, of course, in the New York production, was massive. He just got it totally. You had Toby Jones at one end of the stage and John McEnroe at the other shouting out in New York whines: ‘No, I’m John McEnroe.’ ‘No you’re not—I’m John McEnroe.’ Brilliant. Those names named are some of the big highs of the two runs and the short tour we did with the play. There were times in that show I would turn to Sean and say, “Listen to that laughter because you’ll never hear it as thick again.” That play really was a laughter machine. It was like being at a rock concert, not a stage play!’