Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

This show has been on my radar for most of its three year life; on one occasion I even got to the venue in Edinburgh to find it had sold out. I’ve very much enjoyed similar treatments of Round the Horne, The Missing Hancocks and Men from the Ministry, but this was even more impressive, with two actors playing some 25 roles.

They’ve taken two radio scripts and recreate the recordings at microphones, in costume, with sound affects. The first, When You’ve Got to Go, concerns young Pike’s call up and the second, My Brother and I, a visit from Captain Mainwaring’s brother. Both are from 1975, late in it’s nine year run, and Jimmy Perry & David Croft’s scripts have stood the test of time, all 45 years of it. Not only are they very funny, but they now have a nostalgic charm (well, for someone my age, anyway) and the smile never left my face.

David Benson and Jack Lane give virtuoso performances with uncanny vocal imitations and as this was their first show for some time, they seemed to be enjoying each others performances as well as the joy of performing again, and by the end were very moved, as were the audience. It was a delightful hour, at least for people of a certain age, perhaps more so given the five month theatrical famine.

The venue for this, part of the New Normal Festival, is the courtyard of Le Gothique in the brilliantly named Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, a gothic gem in Wandsworth, is lovely and the Covid measures were all professionally handled. My second return to live theatre in five days was as much fun as the first.