Sunday 11th August 2013 by Will Langdale
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| Just outside one of the many theatres where Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors (2011) has appeared. This photo is the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, where it's currently running, just after it opened in March 2012. Photo by Paul-in-London |
Despite our expert advice on getting our customers into the best theatres and hotels in London, it’s no secret that we’re a company based in Hull, up on the east coast. Currently vying to be the City of Culture 2017, Hull has a rich theatrical history, most notably the fantastic Hull Truck Theatre, and the plays of one of the city’s most famous sons, John Godber.
Yet the past decade has seen the rise of yet another talented Hullspawn in playwright Richard Bean, born in the city in 1956. Bean came to the craft quite late, spending 20 years as a psychologist and then a stand-up before his first play, Paradise of Fools, debuted in the mid-90s. Bean has authored quite a few plays since, both for regional theatres such as Hull Truck and Sheffield Crucible, and for the heavyweights of new writing in London, the prestigious Royal Court and National Theatre. Today we’re going to look at some of Bean’s best work, and honour a furiously interesting and talented man who happens to have been born in TicketTree’s favourite city. Although we like you too, London.
Perhaps the play that Bean is best-known for, and far and away his greatest commercial success, is the hilarious One Man, Two Guvnors (2011). Since it premiered at the National Theatre, the play has transferred into the West End to the Adelphi, and now the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The original cast, including James Cordon, even smashed its way onto Broadway, New York, in 2012. Bean adapted the plot from a 1743 Italian play, Servant of Two Masters. Retaining the audience interaction and comic “bits”, Bean masterfully turned the rich history of Commedia dell’arte into a farce set in the 1960s. One Man, Two Guvnors has had audiences both sides of the Atlantic crying with laughter, and has truly cemented Bean’s reputation as an artist.
One Man, Two Guvnors was directed by the current artistic director of the National (though not for much longer), Nicholas Hytner, who had previously worked on one of Bean’s most controversial plays, England People Very Nice (2009). Following the exploits of three separate waves of immigrants in London, Jewish, Irish and Pakistani, the play courted controversy and was accused of being racist. To its defenders, England People Very Nice is a satirical swipe at the problems immigrants face, ridicules racial stereotypes, and performs an examination of a culture shock that we forget is timeless rather than situated. Yet to its attackers, the play was a forcible demonization of the oppressed that perpetuated racist myths. The National held a roundtable discussion on the issue, and the protests that the play faced were on par with other scandalous plays of the late 20th century, such as Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain (1980) and Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s Behzti (2004).
Richard Bean’s got a couple of things on his plate currently. His 2003 play about Hull trawlermen, Under the Whaleback, which originally starred Richard Wilson at the Royal Court, is enjoying a revival in the unusual location of The Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia. No doubt this is off the back of the American success of One Man, Two Guvnors! He’s also recently had his play Smack Family Robinson staged at the Rose Theatre in London, starring Keith Allen and Denise Welch. His followup to One Man, The Count of Monte Cristo, was very sadly delayed and then cancelled in 2012, much to the dismay of several critics. The Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye has also sniffed out a rumour of a Bean-penned stage adaptation of Made in Dagenham, about women striking for equal pay in 1968, with the possibility of Gemma Arterton starring. According to The Guardian, Bean also has his razor-sharp sights set on a play about the phone-hacking scandal. He’s a busy chap! Phew!
We really love seeing any news about Richard Bean simply because he’s a Hull lad done good, so here’s hoping he’s writing for many years yet. He’s not scared to write about controversial topics, and like Hull Truck founder Mike Bradwell’s open (and quite funny) disdain of “Oxbridge t******”, Bean’s got a bare-faced, unflinching view of how theatre should work that is – dare we say it – very Hull. We’d like to close with a particularly bald quote Bean furnished The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins with.
"If you do Punch and Judy as a play and you make Punch a complete c*** from the off, everyone's just going to go: 'Yeah, hmm, domestic violence is a terrible thing.' If you make Punch funny, charismatic, charming – if people think: 'Ooh, good, Punch is back on stage again' – it doesn't mean you're in favour of domestic violence. But you've got a play, haven't you?"
Ladies and gentleman, Richard Bean.