The Comeback (play)

Last updated
The Comeback
Written by Ben Ashenden
Alex Owen
Date premiered8 December 2020 (2020-12-08)
Place premiered Noël Coward Theatre, London
GenreComedy

The Comeback is a comedy play by Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen (also known as the comedy double-act The Pin).

Contents

Production history

London (2020–21)

The play premiered at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on 8 December 2020 (whilst the theatre's resident show Dear Evan Hansen was on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic). The play stars Ashden and Owen, is directed by Emily Burns and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions. [1]

The play was scheduled to run until 3 January 2021 to a socially distant audience, however due to the Government's announcement of the restrictions the play closed on 15 December. The play reopened on 10 July and ran until 25 July 2021. [2]

The playtext was published by Nick Hern Books on 17 December 2020. [3]

Special guest stars

Each performance contains an appearance from a special guest star. Guests during the London run included Simon Bird, Rob Brydon, Ian McKellen, Joanna Lumley, Danny Dyer, Graham Norton, Ore Oduba, Katherine Parkinson, Clare Balding, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, Toby Jones, Claudia Winkleman, Jayde Adams, Ruby Wax, David Baddiel, Nicola Roberts, Steve Pemberton, Sandi Toksvig, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Bonnie Langford, Nish Kumar, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Ant & Dec, Beverley Knight, Patricia Hodge, Monica Dolan, Phil Wang and Martin Freeman.

Reception

The play was met to critical acclaim and a string of four and five star reviews. [4] [5] [6] [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>Private Lives</i> 1930 play by Noël Coward

Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other. Its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, "Some Day I'll Find You", for the play.

<i>Blithe Spirit</i> (play) Play written by Noël Coward

Blithe Spirit is a comic play by Noël Coward, described by the author as "an improbable farce in three acts". The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his wilful and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost.

<i>Design for Living</i>

Design for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué subject matter was thought unacceptable to the official censor in London. It was not until 1939 that a London production was presented.

Alex Michael Jennings is an English actor of the stage and screen, who worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. For his work on the London stage, Jennings received three Olivier Awards, winning for Too Clever by Half (1988), Peer Gynt (1996), and My Fair Lady (2003). He is the only performer to have won Olivier awards in the drama, musical, and comedy categories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noël Coward Theatre</span> West End theatre in St. Martins Lane in London, formerly the Albery Theatre

The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre in St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster, London. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by the architect W. G. R. Sprague with an exterior in the classical style and an interior in the Rococo style.

Comeback, The Comeback or Come Back may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Walter</span> British actress (born 1950)

Dame Harriet Mary Walter is a British actress. She has performed on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and received an Olivier Award, a Tony Award, five Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, Walter was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Campbell</span> English actress (1916–2004)

Judy Campbell was an English film, television and stage actress, widely known to be Noël Coward's muse. Her daughter was the actress and singer Jane Birkin, her son the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, and among her grandchildren are the actresses Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, the late poet Anno Birkin, the artist David Birkin and the late photographer Kate Barry.

Sean Foley is a British director, writer, comedian and actor. Following early success as part of the comedy double act The Right Size and their long-running stage show The Play What I Wrote, Foley has more recently become a director, including of several West End comedy productions. In 2019, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noël Coward</span> English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer (1899–1973)

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".

Jessica Swale is a British playwright, theatre director and screenwriter. Her first play, Blue Stockings, premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013. It is widely performed by UK amateur companies and is also studied on the Drama GCSE syllabus. In 2016, her play Nell Gwynn won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, after it transferred from the Globe to the West End, starring Gemma Arterton as the eponymous heroine. She also wrote and directed the feature film Summerland (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phoebe Waller-Bridge</span> English actress, screenwriter and producer (born 1985)

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge is an English actress, screenwriter and producer. As the creator, head writer, and star of the comedy series Fleabag (2016–2019), she won three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and a British Academy Television Award. She received further Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for writing and producing the spy thriller series Killing Eve (2018–2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caryl Churchill</span> British playwright (born 1938)

Caryl Lesley Churchill is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non-naturalistic techniques, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Celebrated for works such as Cloud 9 (1979), Top Girls (1982), Serious Money (1987), Blue Heart (1997), Far Away (2000), and A Number (2002), she has been described as "one of Britain's greatest poets and innovators for the contemporary stage". In a 2011 dramatists' poll by The Village Voice, five out of the 20 polled writers listed Churchill as the greatest living playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pin (comedy act)</span> Comedy double-act composed of Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen

The Pin is a comedy double-act composed of Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen. They wrote and starred in a BBC Radio 4 show of the same name from 2015 to 2019.

<i>Calendar Girls</i> (musical)

Calendar Girls The Musical is a musical with music by Gary Barlow, lyrics by Gary Barlow and Tim Firth, and a book by Tim Firth. The musical is based on the 2003 film Calendar Girls, which is in turn based on a true story.

<i>Girl from the North Country</i> (musical) Musical with songs by Bob Dylan

Girl from the North Country is a musical with a book by Conor McPherson using the songs of Bob Dylan. It is the second Broadway show to use Dylan's music after Twyla Tharp's The Times They Are a-Changin'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Ashenden</span> British-Irish actor

Ben Ashenden is a British-Irish actor, writer and comedian. He is half of the double-act, The Pin, with Alexander Owen, with whom he has made four series for BBC Radio 4, picking up nominations at the 2017 Writers' Guild Awards. and Radio Academy Awards, and winning the BBC Radio Award for Best Comedy.

Emilia is a play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm inspired by the life of the 17th century poet and feminist Emilia Bassano, as well as her speculated role as William Shakespeare's "Dark Lady."

<i>2:22 A Ghost Story</i> 2021 play

2:22 A Ghost Story is a thriller play by Danny Robins. It premiered in the West End in 2021, and received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play the following year.

The Unfriend is a play written by Steven Moffat. The plot centres on suburban couple Peter and Debbie, whose polite invitation to a stranger on holiday has dire consequences.

References

  1. "The Comeback a new comedy from The Pin comes to Noel Coward Theatre in December". British Theatre. 2020-10-19. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  2. Thomas, Sophie (2021-04-26). "'The Comeback' by The Pin to return to Noël Coward Theatre". London Theatre Guide. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  3. "Nick Hern Books | The Comeback : By Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen". Nick Hern Books. Retrieved 2021-07-22.
  4. "The Comeback review – comedy that sparkles by double act The Pin". the Guardian. 16 December 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  5. "The Comeback at The Noel Coward Theatre is a winningly meta comedy caper – review". The Independent. 2020-12-16. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  6. Curtis, Nick (2020-12-14). "The Comeback at Noel Coward Theatre review: heartfelt and hilarious". www.standard.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
  7. "The Comeback - Noel Coward Theatre, London". The Reviews Hub. 2020-12-13. Retrieved 2021-07-15.