When Sean Foley and Hamish McColl created The Play What I Wrote they wanted the story to be inspired by the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise rather than a tribute act – and so they created a new comedy duo.
As the two characters, Dennis and Thom, attempt to revive their failing act with a serious play, the story has references to Eric and Ernie - and it is this interplay between the expected and the unexpected which has contributed to the show being such a success.
Premiered in 2001, The Play What I Wrote was staged in the West End and on Broadway, toured the UK and received a host of awards. This Christmas it has been revived by Birmingham Rep and is directed by Sean, now the theatre’s artistic director. After a string of five and four-star reviews in Birmingham, the production tours the UK in early 2022.
“The show is a tease,” says Sean. “It’s a really lovely dance between the idea of you’re watching a Morecambe and Wise tribute show but actually you’re not. So whenever we tease people with ‘here’s a bit of them’ they come to understand what the show is - which is a sophisticated but daft homage.”
Taking the roles of the two comedians are Dennis Herdman and Thom Tuck with Mitesh Soni playing Arthur, their comedy sidekick and numerous other roles. Thom says the cast can quickly tell if they have Morecambe and Wise fans in the audience.
“I don’t actually think it’s important at all for people to know Morecambe and Wise,” Thom says. “It’s just an extra sprinkling for the people who enjoy it. But at the first reference to them you can tell what percentage of the audience are Morecambe and Wise fans because you can hear the murmur ‘they’re doing it’.
“And in a later scene we do ‘What do you think of the show so far? Rubbish’. Some days that will get a round of applause and some days it will get a big laugh but it doesn’t really matter between the two.”
The Play What I Wrote has an additional nod to Eric and Ernie by having a mystery guest in each performance in the tradition of their television shows. This means the cast are constantly needing to re-rehearse with new actors who during the Birmingham run included Tom Hiddleston, Kara Tointon, Denise Welch and Sue Holderness.
“There are big changes depending on the guest star and the audience will react differently as well,” says Dennis. “They all bring something unique and change our dynamic instantly and we’re all either fawning around them or trying to pull the rug from under them.
“It’s fun - it’s lovely to have them on stage and be able to take the mickey and play with them. They have all been up for it and most have been terrified as well! It’s nice that they have a certain status and yet they are also clearly flesh and blood and a nervous human being.”
The show has been a huge crowd-pleaser so far and Sean says much of that is down to the energy of Dennis, Thom and Mitesh.
“What is dazzling, and these guys do it completely brilliantly, is making all of the show look like it is a high wire act and things can go wrong at any time. That is really brilliant comic acting. Someone said to Eric Morecambe ‘I love all your improv lines and your ad-libs’ and he responded ‘It takes a lot of rehearsal to get them right’ and that’s the same with The Play What I Wrote.
“And with this show you also need the chemistry between the cast. We were very lucky that from final auditions, when we saw Dennis and Thom together, they were immediately a double act. Then we added Mitesh in and it just worked – they really make people laugh.”
Thom believes Eric and Ernie’s humour can cross generations because it fits into a comic tradition. “The ingrained thing about British people is that we like cheekiness and there is a sort of anti-establishmentism in Morecambe and Wise’s work,” he says.
“Whether it’s a look direct to camera which says ‘we know this is stupid’ or the play with the guest star, it’s ‘let’s muck about’. British audiences from variety onwards have had that sort of fun. It’s always high on the priority list.”
The Play What I Wrote is just the tonic audiences need right now, says Mitesh.
“There’s an element of what we are going through at the moment in finding comfort in what we know. The Morecambe and Wise element is an added bonus to being able to go back to live theatre and have a good time and laugh for two hours.
“People need that. We’ve been stuck away, in fact are still going through it and not knowing what is going to happen, but we’d say to people ‘just let go for two hours and laugh’ because laughter is contagious. When you hear one person with an amazing laugh, it just spreads across the entire auditorium.”
For most of us Eric Morecambe was, and is, the madcap half of the legendary comedy duo Morecambe and Wise. Loved by millions, Eric and Ernie were a television hit for decades – with their Christmas Specials still a huge favourite every year.
For Gary Morecambe, Eric was also Dad – and Gary says his father was just as zany off-stage as before an audience.
“My dad was pretty mad, I can’t think that he was any different from TV really,” he says. “He was living in a comedy bubble where, when he woke up in the morning, instead of worrying about what to have for breakfast he would be worrying about what he would find funny during the course of the day.
“From a family perspective, it probably got on our nerves a bit but it was entertaining. He was the most naturally funny person I’ve ever met in my life - he was a comedy genius.”
Inspired by that comedy genius, after the deaths of both Eric and Ernie Gary was keen to recreate their special chemistry in a stage show. In 1994 he met producer David Pugh who was having similar thoughts. They spent years trying to find the ideal show until they met writers and actors Sean Foley and Hamish McColl who came up with the idea of creating a comedy based on two failing actors inspired by the spirit of Morecambe and Wise.
With the help of Eddie Braben, who wrote much of the original scripts for the Morecambe and Wise Show, they created The Play What I Wrote which premiered in 2001 and won a host of awards on both sides of the Atlantic. Revived by Birmingham Rep and directed by Hamish, now the theatre’s artistic director, the production is touring the UK in early 2022 starring Dennis Herdman, Thom Tuck and Mitesh Soni, plus a different mystery guest each night.
For Gary, the success of The Play What I Wrote lies in it being a story about two people trying to muddle through rather than a tribute act.
“The show is about relationships. It’s about two comedians, that aren’t Morecambe and Wise, whose relationship was once strong but their act is failing and that’s bringing their relationship to a low ebb. It’s a lovely sideways tribute to Eric and Ernie because they were all about relationship.”
Gary believes the reason for the continued love of Morecambe and Wise is just that – their friendship was at the heart of their shows.
“Some comedy does age quickly but you can’t really age two middle-aged men bickering in arguments about things. Their comedy is actually very surreal but it takes it out of a time zone and puts it in a safe place where you can keep repeating it.
“And they did have a special bond. When there was a break in recording, if we were on holiday or something like that, Dad would always ring Ernie at least once a week,” Gary recalls. “Their lives were very much their relationship – it was like a marriage really.”
Dee Braben, widow of Eddie Braben who died in 2013, says her husband also understood the power of that relationship.
“Eddie was a lot like Eric and Ernie, they got on well. They all came from the same background and I think that helped enormously as they had the same sense of humour. Eddie would watch Eric and Ernie and that was how he would make those jokes work - he would watch their mannerisms and how they would interact with each other and he would take it from there. It was all people-watching.”
Eddie wrote for the show from 1969 and many of his lines remain classics.
“They are really iconic jokes,” says Dee. “I can be out and an ambulance can go past and I’ll hear somebody say the old joke ‘he’s not going to sell much ice cream going at that speed’ and I’m standing there and I’m thinking ‘I wish I could tell you my husband wrote that’.”
But behind their seemingly anarchic comedy, Eric, Ernie and Eddie were committed to the highest levels of professionalism.
“Some of those jokes took hours or even days to write,” recalls Dee. “Eddie would write a joke and he would look at it again for hours and it would be ‘no it’s not good enough’ and changing just one word would make all the difference. That was what took the time, blood, sweat and tears.
“And he never stopped - when he was watching the shows and even when they were repeated after Eric and Ernie died, he would say ‘I should have put another word in there’ or ‘I should have added another line’. He was still dissecting them even all those years later.”
Eddie was delighted to be involved in The Play What I Wrote, giving his views on the script and writing new jokes for it.
“I remember at the end of the opening night when they played Bring Me Sunshine it was especially emotional for Eddie,” says Dee. “They were joyful happy tears and when there was a standing ovation at the end it was really a special moment.
“I’m hoping audiences are still getting that same ripple of anticipation and that feeling of love for Morecambe and Wise in this tour, I think that’s timeless.”