Laurel & Hardy – Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
Knowledge of our two protagonists – for those of us who had a TV back in the late 60’s/early 70’s - extended to a pair of bumbling incompetents consistently at odds with even the most mundane of situations. Funny, comic, slapstick, every grade of mirth was covered, be it driving a car or attempting some interior decoration, the wince-inducing violence happily hilarious and incidental. In our lofty 9-year-old estimation Tom & Jerry cartoons (the proper ones!) owed a huge debt to Stan and Ollie. But this production delved behind the Saturday morning entertainment, an insight into the lives of Oliver Norvell Hardy and Arthur Stanley Jefferson, successes in their own right prior to becoming the duo the globe knows so well.
The austere, bleached (even the pies were bluey-grey) concrete b...