Five creepy criminals versus a batty old lady. It hardly seems fair. They never stood a chance.

The classic 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers stars Alec Guinness and Herbert Lom at their villainous best (along with Peter Sellers in his early chubby phase). It has seeped into the British cultural consciousness and fermented into a satirical fairy tale for the ages. The odd story, dreamt one night by writer William Rose, has a simple premise: Five bank robbers, disguised as a quintet of practicing musicians, have holed up in the lodging house of daft landlady Mrs Wilberforce. But unlike most moralistic crime capers in which the bad guys receive a comeuppance via their evil natures, in The Ladykillers they are struck down by their sense of compassion. Or at least squeamishness about killing sweet little old ladies.

Peter Capaldi is the mastermind Professor Marcus, a leering, crook-faced gargoyle with an unplaceable accent, flapping about like a bat in knitwear. A Nosferatu in Dr. Who’s scarf. James Fleet as the cowardly but frilly Major Courtney, Stephen Wight as the pill-popping spiv Harry Robinson, Ben Miller as dastardly foreigner and gerontophobe Louis Harvey and Clive Rowe as the mountainous One Round, wallowing in his own thickness; All the performers were excellent, and obviously Marcia Warren is great as the adorably innocent harbinger of death. But the set is the equal to them all, a full member of the cast. Lurching angles (the actors seemed to stumble sometimes, still disoriented despite rehearsals by the subtly psychotic cottage) and sputtering lighting bear the burden of maintaining the sense of evil the film somehow conveyed despite its humour. That noir atmosphere can’t be sustained in a live production as goofy as this one. Drama’s loss is comedy’s gain. Which it needn’t have been, and that’s a shame, but the result is still a brilliant piece of entertainment.

Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, has loosely reworked the story, keeping the rough shape but with more silliness, whimsy and sight gags. In fact, the play works best when he completely abandons the rigour of the film in favour of his own mad obsessions. Not that the play is sloppy. The madness is tightly choreographed, with sleight of hand and magic tricks employed to create comedic surprises he would normally have counted on editing to produce. But while the resulting show is fairly slick it also manages to seem shambolic, wonky and extremely low-tech in a way that only increases its charm. When other shows in the West End and Broadway are battling Hollywood with huge casts wearing animals on their heads, elaborate laser shows, terrifying web-slinging accidents and stages that can transform into giant robots, The Ladykillers has stagehands hiding inside the furniture awkwardly pushing stuff about using sticks or maybe magnets. Instead of an enormous budget this show makes do with cleverness and a child-like sense of fun.

The biggest difference between the two versions of The Ladykillers is the world outside the theatre. In 1955 it was a given that these bank robbers must be punished for their misdeeds. In 2011, however, Prof. Marcus defends their actions by pointing out that all the money they have stolen is insured, and asks “What is the difference between robbing a bank… and founding one?” The play’s modern relevance had me thinking- why shouldn’t these criminals be allowed, this time, to live happily ever after? When bankers are thieves and everybody else is treated like lowlifes who deserve to be fleeced, then surely these villains are the heroes and Mrs. Wilberforce- dear, naive, upstanding Mrs. Wilberforce- is a tool of the devil. I kind of wanted the show to end at the halfway point, with the crooks absconding with their loot to the Turks and Caicos. But then, I’ve spent my life scheming ways for Charlie Croker to reel back the Swiss gold.

The Ladykillers at the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, 0207 492 1548, gielgud.official-theatre.co.uk Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square stations

By Alan Hindle
4:10 PM

Like so many comics I’m seeing at the Camden Fringe, Luke Toulson is much funnier interacting with the audience than delivering set material, and when things go wrong he has gear up to salvage the show. Wisely, then, Toulson has made a show with very little material, a whole lot of chatting with the audience, and plenty of opportunities to fuck up. Or, perhaps I lucked out on the night, as there can’t be that many audiences out there containing people whose job description is “Thai Ping Pong Dancer,” or “Tasmanian Illegal Gaming Site So I Can’t Tell You Who There Are Or They Will Have To Kill Us All.” The show was sold out the night before, and doing the barest minimum of research I found Toulson is a regular at the Edinburgh Fringe and won some awards for stuff, so chances are it will be full tonight as well. However, Toulson, while funny and I certainly laughed, delivers an even amount of average laughter, a level carpet of humour- with a reasonably thick shag, but with few outstanding thrills. Perhaps I like my comedy graph a bit spikier. I’m happy to sit through lulls if they lead suddenly to LOLs. (I don’t really know any Txt slang, I just know that one because some twelve year-olds were using it in conversation on the bus and I am apparently the sort of person who eavesdrops on 12-year-olds for writing tips.)

Camden Fringe Festival page

By Alan Hindle
11:47 AM

Paul F. Taylor, AKA Pauly, has always dreamed of having his own sitcom. His mother, apparently not knowing the damage she was doing to her child, indulged by watching his little shows in the living room, featuring the family dog and all the fruit in the house. She even laughed. Will parents never learn? Today Paul is a lanky, hirsute, goofy, unemployed and unemployable comedian living on canned chuckles in a CGI house (filmed against the “red screen” of the Camden Head curtains) with a rotating cast of friends and dogs, depending on who’s in the audience. On the night I saw the show there were only seven of us in the room and half of us wound up as guest-stars. And that is a criminal shame. (And poor use of math, since that makes for 3 and a half guest stars. Having half a guest on your stage probably is criminal.) The show is brilliant, with a bit of Harry Hill about Taylor. The “plot” is as worthless as you could hope for, and while Taylor’s jokes are excellent, it’s better when he gets them wrong, or they don’t get a laugh and he has to scramble to find it elsewhere. He does seem to exhaust himself, petering out towards the end, suffering from nipple-sweats and occasional desperate muggings. But I loved the show and hopefully he’ll see fuller rooms for future shows. Where the hell is everybody? At home, watching My Family.

Camden Fringe Festival page

By Alan Hindle
11:44 AM

This is the final week of the Camden Fringe and there are still so many opportunities to see both crap and shining gems. Good luck and take as many chances as you can. A possible tip might be Luke Toulson: Laid-Back Grouch at the Camden Head pub tonight and tomorrow at 8pm. I went last night and was turned away from a sold-out room. A full house for the first night of a Fringe gig is rare, so obviously folks know about this guy and there might be something to it. Book online to avoid being disappointment, like the several other people who were waiting with me. Maybe they did get in after all. Toulson did say he expected at least some people to leave during the show. “I’m pretty bad,” he muttered.

Also at the Camden Head, for one night, the 28th, Leisa Rea sings and plays guitars and banjos and ukuleles with Sarah Adams. Rea’s Pension Plan (see review) was excellent and the thought of seeing her coping with both life and a tiny guitar seems like a nice treat to end the Fringe with.

The Camden Fringe continues until 28 August at various venues. See their site at camdenfringe.org

By Alan Hindle
3:01 PM

Rob Deb lives with his family, probably in the basement, hunched over his computer, stacks of comics, multi-sided die and D&D encyclopaedias, eating pizza and dreaming of women he has seen depicted in hand-painted lead figurines as dryads.

By Alan Hindle
1:56 PM

What does the cow say? Well, as any one knows who grew up on the Canadian prairies with nothing to do but either push over sleeping cows or make love to them, it’s not so much what they say as the startled/sexy look in their eyes that communicates in volumes. Not the Adventures of Moleman leaps and jumps frenetically between sketches, which don’t so much recur as organically grow into each other. Cheerful desperation rarely works, yet Moleman pull it off spectacularly. Arron Ferguson, his head so square he makes Daniel Radcliffe’s look like a rectangle, and Richard Murray, who is naked throughout all but the majority of the show, have created something more like comedy jazz. Even when their sketches don’t work, which is only occasionally, there is still a pretty damn rich seam of possibility in their premises. I have a feeling I might have been seeing something which goes on to greatness. They are both still quite young, somewhere between 20 and 11. I can say with confidence Murray has not yet grown pubic hair. Or perhaps he is just that much of a professional already and is employing the services of a nether-coif stylist. In any case, I can definitely say that if this show plays elsewhere I would happily pay to see it. My only complaint is that the third and fourth performers, known vaguely as Page and Wally, got absolutely so mention or credit in the programme, on their website, or in my subsequent dreams of cows.

Camden Fringe Festival page

By Alan Hindle
1:52 PM

Butoh is a form of dance requiring absolute control. It can move quite quickly, but often, more usually, moves at a snail’s pace, the body creeping in slow motion across a room, or through a complex series of movements.

By Alan Hindle
1:49 PM

It’s not that you can never return home. It’s that when you return you have become somebody else. Shaky Isles director stressed that Tanwha Thames is still very much in its creation phase.

By Alan Hindle
1:46 PM

“Oh dear,” the little old lady says to Michael as she relentlessly knits a shapeless yellow thing out of an infinite pile of yarn. “You’re not taking this very well.”

By Alan Hindle
1:42 PM

Two comics, no jokes. At least they were honest about this. Tom Hayward announced, ten minutes into his thirty minute slot, that he had no material, not even his “Have anybody ever/What’s up with that” schtick, and instead resorted to pointing at things.

By Alan Hindle
8:01 PM