The Ladykillers

The Ladykillers is one of the most famous ealing comedies.  It help propell a young Peter Sellers to Stardom.

As a film, it is pretty flawless - there is black comedy, menance and fine acting, a great plot a moral tale and social observation.

Recently there has been a stage version of the Ladykillers, written by Graham Lineham, best know for co-scripting the Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted.
The play as a fascinating insight into how to transfer a film to the stage.
Largely, Lineham has rewritten the film, partly because of the limitations of the stage and partly i feel, because that is what is needed for it to work well.

The play is fantastically performed and I would say that even though at the performamnce I saw, two of the main charecters were played by understudies - if one hadn't been told, you would never have known.

Professor Marcus was played to perfection by Peter Capaldi -
Ben Miller (of Armstong and Miller) asd Loius and James Fleet (Vicar of Dibley) as the Major, were obviously still having enormous fun playing the parts well into a long run.  The other members of the gang, Harry and One Round got loads of laughs - more than in the film.   Running gags were execlelntly incorporated into the performance.