Steve McNicoll as Oliver Hardy and Barnaby Power as Stan Laurel in the Royal Lyceum production of Tom McGrath's 'Laurel & Hardy' directed by Tony Cownie

The Guardian 8 June 2022

Movie director Leo McCarey has a proposal for producer Hal Roach. He has seen Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel acting in the same silent short, The Lucky Dog, and now he wants to see them as a double act. The film could be called Putting Pants on Philip and the comedians would play to their distinctive characteristics: Hardy as the southern gentleman, Laurel as the wiry Brit. McCarey thinks they’ll be funny together.

Not only that, this will be an antidote to the madcap tomfoolery of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and the Keystone Cops. His genius idea is for them to play it slow. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).