‘Jack Absolute Flies Again’ Review: A Knockout New Comedy by the Writer of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’
variety.comDavid Benedict No one saw it coming. Reworking Goldoni’s 18th-century comedy “A Servant of Two Masters” didn’t look like the recipe for a transatlantic comedy smash, but that was before Richard Bean turned it into the sensational “One Man, Two Guvnors.” Now teaming up with co-writer Oliver Chris (who played James Corden’s dashing-but-dim master in the earlier hit), Bean is back with another revamp of an old play and London’s National Theatre has high hopes.
Shock news: Comedy lighting does strike twice. As the ultra-British 1940s types peopling the farcical plot might put it, “Hurrah!”Those hopes were literally sky high since Bean and Chris have relocated Sheridan’s 1775 comedy “The Rivals” among a bunch of fighter pilots during World War Two.
They have set up camp on the sunlit lawns (via Mark Thompson’s cheerily nostalgic picture-book set) of Malaprop Hall, a stately pile requisitioned by the Royal Air Force yet still overseen by its owner.
Picking up on the Restoration comedy idea of direct audience address and running with it throughout, Mrs. Malaprop, Sheridan’s legendary, matronly mangler of language, opens the proceedings “with faultless electrocution.” Eyeballing the audience, Caroline Quentin tartly observes, “Imelda Staunton was not available.
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