At Sgript Cymru |
| Sgript Cymru- Life of Ryan...and Ronnie , Wales Millennium Centre , October 14, 2005 |
| Andy Roberts enjoys the bitter sweet story of Wales's favourite comedy double act, brought to the stage by Meic Povey at the Wales Millennium Centre. Emerging in the late 1960s as the Welsh Morecambe and Wise, Ryan Davies and Ronnie Williams achieved great success on Welsh language TV before their big break with three network series on BBC One across the UK. Meic Povey's affectionate but frank English-language tribute for sgriptcymru goes backstage to explore the forces that kept Ryan and Ronnie together for seven spectacular years but eventually drove them apart one fateful night at the Double Diamond in Caerphilly in 1974. Ryan, the naturally talented genius, embarked on a solo career as international fame beckoned, cruelly interrupted just three years later by heart failure brought on by an asthma attack in Buffalo, New York, an event which the play reminds us ranks with the Kennedy assassination in the minds of the people of Wales. In this double-hander, Aled Pugh as Ryan and Kai Owen as Ronnie impress not only with their strong physical resemblance to the stars, but in capturing their essense and "can't live with him, can't live without him" relationship. Owen carries an air of wounded pride as Ronnie, the trained actor from a showbiz family (Ryan: "Do we have them in Wales?") who knows deep down that he's "a hotelier at heart", in equal measure resenting, admiring and relying on the natural talent and genius of his partner. Opening the play, Owen sits backstage with a bottle of vodka, terrified of facing an audience - maybe life itself - without his partner. Then bounding on stage to save the day is a white-faced Pugh - is this Ryan's natural pallour or a ghostly apparition? But this isn't Salieri and Mozart - we soon learn that Ryan has his own demons. Pugh finely conveys Ryan's ready wit and Puckish air, tempered with the trait of a hard taskmaster - "we're not here to have fun ... comedy is a serious business". It's driven by a desire to prove himself to a mother in Carmarthenshire who is unconvinced that TV shows, films with Richard Burton, and success in America amount to a proper job after he gave up teaching. Moreover, Ryan is both scornful and wounded when Ronnie - regularly berated for failing to learn his lines - can quote verbatim a newspaper review that claims that for all his talent, Ryan needs Ronnie more than he cares to admit. We see how success brings its own pressures - Ronnie is happy to stay in Wales as a big fish, enjoying the well-lubricated hospitality of the fans, while Ryan craves the bigger picture. A scene where Ronnie the chat show host interviews Ryan the movie star about his escapades on the set of Under Milk Wood starkly shows how both were disappointed by getting what they thought they wanted. As we know, Ryan's was to be "a long journey cut short" while Ronnie stumbles along in ever decreasing alcohol-fuelled circles for another twenty years before he opts for a burial at sea off a bridge in Cardigan. Meic Povey's portrayal of their lives is a powerful mix of pathos and pleasure - indeed this "play what he wrote" is much more satisfying than the relatively shallow Kenneth Branagh-directed Morecambe and Wise tribute. Given that the audience on press night included a good smattering of Ryan and Ronnie's former TV colleagues, here's hoping they dig into the archives, dust off the tapes and give us another chance to see the duo at the height of their powers and show everyone under the age of thirty what all the fuss was about. Until then, this play is not to be missed. this review appears on the BBC Wales web site |
Reviewed by: Andy Roberts |
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