Fizzing with charisma

Morecambe
Duchess

Red
Donmar

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Julie Burchill

Will I ever pee again?

Peter Kay: ‘I’ve never met a person who didn’t at the very least love Eric Morecambe.’ Hello? Peter? Over here. I remember Eric and Ernie during the 1970s and they were as entertaining as a power cut. Perfunctory, passionless mother-in-law jokes. Semi-funny puns pouring out like weak tea. Nursery-rhyme repetition everywhere. The catchphrases. The trick with the paper bag. Eric slapping Ernie’s cheeks. Endless jibes about Ernie’s hairy legs and his playwriting ambitions, even though both gags were non sequiturs: we couldn’t see Ernie’s legs and we knew for sure he wasn’t a playwright because he was too busy being the country’s richest unfunny stand-up. Their bland, innocuous comedy of reassurance didn’t travel well. America sent them packing. Their films bombed. The oft-quoted stat that 28 million of us watched their 1977 Christmas Special conceals the fact that the other 28 millon of us had better things to do.

So the Eric Morecambe tribute show arrives in the West End laden with assurances of its brilliance. I found it unexpectedly captivating. Bob Golding’s performance fizzes with charisma and bonhomie. The impersonation is absolutely uncanny. Look up there. Eric’s back. He isn’t dead. He’s in the room with all his tricks and shuffles, his winks and twinkles. All the jokes have returned from the graveyard as well. An ambulance goes past, siren blaring. ‘He won’t sell much ice cream going at that speed.’ Fairly amusing. Sort of. Oh, all right, then, funny.

To the Donmar Warehouse for a bio-drama featuring the conceptual painter Mark Rothko. Heard of him? Here’s a clue. Whoops, I’ve dropped another gallon of ketchup. That Mark Rothko. This play is about painting, or rather about the remnant of painting we call ‘modern art’. Before photograpy destroyed draughtsmanship, artists were labourers, odd-jobbers, innovators, scientists in the best sense, philosophers with dirty hands using the materials of the universe to enhance our understanding of it.