The Play What I Wrote
is a musical farce written by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben, starring Foley and McColl (the double act The Right Size, playing characters named "Sean" and "Hamish"), and directed by Kenneth Branagh.
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THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE TICKETS
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Synopsis
The show is a celebration of the British
double act Morecambe and Wise, and an irreverent and farcical exploration of the nature of double acts in general. Its title is drawn from one of Morecambe and Wise's catchphrases, as is "A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple", the "
play within a play" (with a
cameo by a mystery celebrity guest star) which formed the play's second half. It is named after the "
play wot I wrote", the inept play supposedly written by Wise and featuring a celebrity guest which formed the finale to each Morecambe and Wise show. In the
The Play Wot I Wrote
, "Sean" writes a similarly inept play and is humoured by "Hamish" in the first half by having it put on. As in the Morecambe and Wise antecedent, the celebrity would play him or herself set up to appear, rather foolishly, as the title character of this play within a play.
Production history
The play debuted at the
Liverpool Playhouse Theatre in the summer of 2001 and moved on later that year to its
West End premiere at the
Wyndham's Theatre,
London, where it proved a success. It won Foley and McColl a joint Best Actor nomination at the 2002
Laurence Olivier Awards and, although they did not win, the production did achieve an Olivier Award for best comedy and for best actor in a supporting role (with the latter won by
Toby Jones, who played the pair's friend Arthur).
In 2003 the play opened on
Broadway where it was nominated for a
Tony award. It failed to win and closed shortly afterwards. The script was only slightly rewritten for the benefit of American audiences who were unlikely to have been familiar with Morecambe and Wise.
References