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A film with Dyer, Christopher Biggins and Lionel Blair. It's more like a list of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here contestants.
Ray Cooney is currently directing a film of his long running farce Run For Your Wife with Danny Dyer (?), Neil Morrissey, Denis Van Outen and over 100 cameos.
Great farce but IIRC some of the jokes/targets are (inevitably) politically incorrect by todays standards. Have an awful feeling it will be a bland reworking of the play.
Run For Your Wife
A film with Dyer, Christopher Biggins and Lionel Blair. It's more like a list of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here contestants.
It's taken him long enough - it was years ago when this ran in the West End!
I can't see who out of the current UK cinema audience will want to see it as it is nearly 20 years since it closed. Most of Cooney's other farces have been filmed in europe but not in this country suggesting that farce is alive and well on the continent but not here.Originally Posted by didi-5
Farce is probably the most difficult comedy form to get right, when it is, it is sublime (my favourite Frasier episode is the high farce of The Ski Lodge ) but too often it becomes "Whoops ! There goes my trousers".
Even though it does star Danny Dire I look forward to the film if only for the cameos.
Well I'm on the direct other side of the North Sea and I doubt this will ever make it to cinemas over here.
Last edited by Onedin; 04-08-11 at 10:04 AM.
Adaptations of stage farces to big screen often don't quite work either unfortunately. Cooney's "Not Now..." films, "Will Any Gentlemen..?", "No Sex Please, We're British" are examples of this - though still enjoyable, they're quite claustrophobic. Still, I'd be interested in seeing it - as at the end of the day, it's the kind of writing/genre that I like, but I am genuinely surprised it's actually being made in the first place!
Is farce any harder to get right as a film that a film version of any other play or novel? Bearing in mind that it's hard to get farce right on stage as well.
Farce on film can work. Loot (1972) with Richard Attenborough, Lee Remick & Hywel Bennett was very well done (IMHO). But that was Galton & Simpson adapting the Joe Orton play
Steve
During my annual holiday in Bournemouth, I always used to look forward to seeing the latest farce in the pier theatre. There were always the usual showbiz and TV big starring names involved but sadly some years ago a local councillor loftily pronounced "we want Bournemouth to be above the level of farce" so tragically, no more farce on the pier and a great loss to the holidaymakers!
Just last night I watched a documentary about our Dutch Royal Family, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that our previous queen, Juliana, was a keen amateur actress. She used to rehearse with the group almost weekly, just at someone's home over a cup of tea, and a lot of what they played was farce.
One of the actors who used to be on stage with her (while she was our Queen!), recalled that an edition of 'Playboy' was missing. It was part of the play................................he then discovered that Prince Bernhard, our Queen's very husband, had literally nicked it, not knowing it was part of the play. Etiquette told the actor to go and fetch one of the footmen, who subsequently told our Royal Prince that the 'Playboy' was needed for the play................
I saw RFYW at Hull New Theatre with Les Dawson in the lead. Side-splittingly funny, but I feel it won't translate to screen.
I saw that production at Darlington - it was very funny, though I got the impression Dawson added his own bits of business.
I don't even think it is question of will it translate. As I said earlier I don't think it will find an audience over here as farce in West End terms seems largely dead (excepting revivals). Theatres like the Mill at Sonning and Jill Freud and Company and provincial tours are the only places to see them live. Alot of the current cinema audience are unlikely to have heard of the original play and those that have are unlikely to want to see Danny Dire in the lead in a play they saw on stage 20 odd years ago.
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