At Sgript Cymru |
| Sgript Cymru- Life of Ryan...and Ronnie , Wales Millennium Centre , October 20, 2005 |
| This review first appeared in the Western Mail... There’s a fine tradition of theatrical biographies and it’s one that has had a boost in recent years, with plays based on Tommy Cooper, the Carry On crew, Kenneth Williams, Morecombe and Wise… so why not Wales’s own comedy duo Ryan and Ronnie ? Now I have to confess I had never heard of Ryan and Ronnie until Meic Povey decided to write about them. They may be the best and most-loved comic act Wales has ever seen but, especially to one who rarely watches tv, I have to report they aren’t actually household names outside the country. So Sgript Cymru’s latest show, opening in the studio at the WMC before a lengthy tour of Wales and a week in London, will I suspect mean different things to different audiences and there was certainly bemused perplexity as well as delighted recognition among the first-night audience. I don’t think theatre needs to be universal and I have no problems with a play that speaks to a targeted audience; indeed, if a playwright is dealing with a subject that is part of a culture they share with many others then it is clearly impossible for them to step outside. Ryan and Ronnie, the actual act and this play, are part of the same culture. It isn’t that the terms of reference are exclusive, that their humour is distinctly Welsh, that they were peculiarly of their time, it’s just that to an outsider their story can seem not very interesting or original. Familiarity, I am sure, transforms Povey’s play. If you know where it ends up, there may be lots of ironies along the way. If you know the narrative of their lives, you will recognise the crucial scenes on their joint journey. If you saw them, you may enjoy the impersonations by Aled Pugh and Kai Owen. Without recognition ? Well, there are those certainly who found in this true story a universal theme, moving and meaningful, without knowing anything about the real-life characters, finding in the relationship between the two men the emotional tensions and contradictions usually reserved for lovers. But I’m afraid it simply didn’t touch me, even after reading the playscript. Its basic premise, it seems to me, is that these two men had been together so much they have confused their stage personae with any reality and that they lost their identities as individuals. Even jealousies and bickering became part of the stage act, and the stage act defined any private life – Povey’s dialogue is mostly in the style of comic repartee. It’s a familiar scenario and in Ryan and Ronnie you can see Laurel and Hardy, Martin and Lewis and a host of other legendary twosomes. But one of the problems I have with this play is that I just didn’t find them very funny and so, for example, any question of Ryan Davies (or at least the Ryan Davies we have here) being a transatlantic star was faintly ludicrous. Ronnie Williams ? A nonentity who liked a tipple, lacking any real talent or personality – at least in this version. And while I wasn’t convinced by their comedy neither was I moved by the pathos that you kind of know is there but didn’t actually register with me on the first night. So those twin cliché qualities of the funny man, tears and laughter, I found absent. As we’d expect from Meic Povey, Life of Ryan… and Ronnie (and within that title is presumably a pun on Life of Brian, an ironic take on the idea of a life of Riley… and that Ronnie is really an afterthought) it’s clever and well-written. It may well work as biography for those that were there, and may speak to others who may find it a familiar and touching tale, but all I can say is that it didn’t do it for me. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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