Theatre

The Ladykillers

Alan Hindle | Wednesday 14 December, 2011 16:10

Five creepy criminals versus a batty old lady. It hardly seems fair. They never stood a chance.

The classic 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers stars Alec Guinness and Herbert Lom at their villainous best (along with Peter Sellers in his early chubby phase). It has seeped into the British cultural consciousness and fermented into a satirical fairy tale for the ages. The odd story, dreamt one night by writer William Rose, has a simple premise: Five bank robbers, disguised as a quintet of practicing musicians, have holed up in the lodging house of daft landlady Mrs Wilberforce. But unlike most moralistic crime capers in which the bad guys receive a comeuppance via their evil natures, in The Ladykillers they are struck down by their sense of compassion. Or at least squeamishness about killing sweet little old ladies.

Peter Capaldi is the mastermind Professor Marcus, a leering, crook-faced gargoyle with an unplaceable accent, flapping about like a bat in knitwear. A Nosferatu in Dr. Who’s scarf. James Fleet as the cowardly but frilly Major Courtney, Stephen Wight as the pill-popping spiv Harry Robinson, Ben Miller as dastardly foreigner and gerontophobe Louis Harvey and Clive Rowe as the mountainous One Round, wallowing in his own thickness; All the performers were excellent, and obviously Marcia Warren is great as the adorably innocent harbinger of death. But the set is the equal to them all, a full member of the cast. Lurching angles (the actors seemed to stumble sometimes, still disoriented despite rehearsals by the subtly psychotic cottage) and sputtering lighting bear the burden of maintaining the sense of evil the film somehow conveyed despite its humour. That noir atmosphere can’t be sustained in a live production as goofy as this one. Drama’s loss is comedy’s gain. Which it needn’t have been, and that’s a shame, but the result is still a brilliant piece of entertainment.

Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, has loosely reworked the story, keeping the rough shape but with more silliness, whimsy and sight gags. In fact, the play works best when he completely abandons the rigour of the film in favour of his own mad obsessions. Not that the play is sloppy. The madness is tightly choreographed, with sleight of hand and magic tricks employed to create comedic surprises he would normally have counted on editing to produce. But while the resulting show is fairly slick it also manages to seem shambolic, wonky and extremely low-tech in a way that only increases its charm. When other shows in the West End and Broadway are battling Hollywood with huge casts wearing animals on their heads, elaborate laser shows, terrifying web-slinging accidents and stages that can transform into giant robots, The Ladykillers has stagehands hiding inside the furniture awkwardly pushing stuff about using sticks or maybe magnets. Instead of an enormous budget this show makes do with cleverness and a child-like sense of fun.

The biggest difference between the two versions of The Ladykillers is the world outside the theatre. In 1955 it was a given that these bank robbers must be punished for their misdeeds. In 2011, however, Prof. Marcus defends their actions by pointing out that all the money they have stolen is insured, and asks “What is the difference between robbing a bank… and founding one?” The play’s modern relevance had me thinking- why shouldn’t these criminals be allowed, this time, to live happily ever after? When bankers are thieves and everybody else is treated like lowlifes who deserve to be fleeced, then surely these villains are the heroes and Mrs. Wilberforce- dear, naive, upstanding Mrs. Wilberforce- is a tool of the devil. I kind of wanted the show to end at the halfway point, with the crooks absconding with their loot to the Turks and Caicos. But then, I’ve spent my life scheming ways for Charlie Croker to reel back the Swiss gold.

The Ladykillers at the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, 0207 492 1548, gielgud.official-theatre.co.uk Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square stations

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