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Smash hit shimmers with pure silliness


AFTER conquering the West End, including a 2014 Olivier Award for Best Comedy, PG Wodehouse’s iconic pairing Jeeves & Wooster bring their trademark humour to Car- diff’s New Theatre next week. Adapted from Wodehouse’s


works, Perfect Nonsense is a wonderful new play with an hilarious cast. Edward Han- cock plays the effervescent Wooster, while narrating this outrageous tale as Jeeves is Jason Thorpe, who also has to run around building the set and enacting all the other characters. Helping Jeeves bring the characters to life is fellowbutler Seppings, played by Chris Ryan – perhaps best remembered by comedy fans for his appearances in TV’s The Young Ones, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous.


Were you a fan of PG Wodehouse? I’m not an aficionado or any- thing, but I did read the Blan- dings and Lord Emsworth (novels), things like that. As for Jeeves and Wooster, I do remember watching Ian Car- michael and Dennis Price in the ‘60s. Obviously these days, most people remember Ste- phen Fry and Hugh Laurie, but I thought Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price were very good, too.


How have you found playing Seppings on the tour? It involves for me so much energy and concentration so each show is totally ener- gised, committed and concen- trated. It’s not enjoyment so much in the sense of going out there and having fun, but if the audience are having fun, that gives me satisfaction in that its working.


Do you prefer working on stage or television? I feel more comfortable


and at home in the theatre. I never feel particularly com- fortable doing film and televi- sion, they are such technical mediums. In the theatre, you get the immediate response, you’re on the tightrope be- cause you can’t say “Cut! We’ll do it again,” so you keep going. You start at the begin-


Comedy


ning go through the middle then to the end and do it night after night so you can refine, change and develop things.


Was it true you were an original member of The Flying Pickets? That’s interesting because


in 1980, I was in a political left-wing company called 7:84 (founded)by John McGrath and we’d done a play by John Burrows called One Big Blow which was about a group of miners who were also a brass band. We did everything vocally,


harmonies and sang all types of pop stuff from all periods and we’d travel from place to place as the band. Then we did one gig at the Albany Em- pire, but that was the only one I did. We called ourselves tenta-


tively The Flying Pickets. I think it might have been Bri- an Hibbard who thought of that, he was a wonderful actor who had that Welsh darkness. He was like a piece of coal in a way, it was extraordinary the quality he had.


COMEDY STAR: Chris Ryan I can’t claim to be a Flying


Picket, I was probably in the prototype, but I’d left the com- pany by then.


How did you come by your part in The Young Ones? I was doing a play at the Cri- terion Theatre called Can’t Pay Won’t Pay, which was a Dario Fo political farce, with an actress called Maggie Steed, whose partner at the time was Andy de la Tour. He was part of that group and I


think he suggested me. They were looking for someone to play this character (Mike, the cool person). I went along to the BBC


and met Paul Jackson who was producing and directing and read with Nigel and Rik Mayall. I don’t think Ade Ed- mondson was there on that particular day. I did some little improvisation things. This was all in order to do a pilot, which we did and that pilot became the first episode. Then it was commissioned for a series and then another. Subsequently from that we


did Waiting for Godot in the West End. I played Lucky and Rik and Ade played Vladimir and Estragon and then they asked if I could play Hedge- hog in Bottom. By then, Ade had married Jennifer Saun- ders who wrote Absolutely Fabulous, she wrote this char- acter called Marshall for me. Its funny how these things relate.


So back to Jeeves and Wooster, how would you describe the show? It’s universal, timeless and


fun. The response we’ve had through the tour has been very enthusiastic. Hopefully, they’ll get a taste for Wode- house and it may prompt them to read the books.


JEEVES & WOOSTER: Edward Hancock and Jason Thorpe will recreate iconic characters on stage


Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense is at the New Thea- tre from June 9-13. For details or to book tickets, visit www. newtheatrecardiff.co.uk or call (029) 2087 8889.


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7 Theatre


appearance in Jeeves&Wooster, PerfectNonsense in Cardiff nextweek Anticipated sequel ANDYHOWELLS chats to former YoungOneChris Ryan about his


SEQUEL: Lost and Found


BENEATH the Streets: Lost and Found, the hotly anticipat- ed sequel to Beneath the Streets 2014 will run from 26 June to 3 July in a secret location in Cardiff City Centre and tick- ets are nowon sale. Beneath the Streets: Lost and


Found is an immersive theat- rical experience in which the audience is invited to roam through the space encounter- ing characters and uncovering a story as the action unfolds all around them. The perfor- mance uncovers a hidden world of lost items from keys and glasses to love. The piece is performed by a large cast of actors with and without disabilities, including nine performers from Hijinx Academy in Cardiff, Hijinx’s professional training course for actors with learning dis-


abilities. The show reunites the suc- cessful partnership between Hijinx – specialists in inclu- sive theatre – and Punchdrunk Enrichment, the community arm of renowned immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. Beneath the Streets 2014,


which saw the basement of Cardiff’s Castle Arcade trans- formed in to a labyrinth of performance spaces, received a nomination for Best Produc- tion in the English Language at Wales Theatre Awards 2015. Beneath the Streets: Lost and


Found takes place on Friday 26 June 7pm and 9 pm, Saturday 27 June 7pm and 9 pm, Sunday 28 June 3pm and 5pm, Tues- day 30 June 7 pm, Wednesday 1 July 7 pm, Thursday 2 July 7 pmand 9 pm, Friday 3 July 6.30 pm and 9 pm.


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