by Richard Bean
One Man, Two Guvnors is a riotous physical comedy by Richard Bean, freely adapted from Carlo Goldoni's 1743 commedia dell'arte classic The Servant of Two Masters (Il servitore di due padroni) and relocated to Brighton in 1963. It premiered in the National Theatre production in 2011, with James Corden in the central role, before transferring to the West End and Broadway. Perpetually broke and even more perpetually hungry, minder Francis Henshall hits on a simple plan to double his wages: serve two guvnors at once, keeping each one ignorant of the other. The first is small-time gangster Roscoe Crabbe — in fact Roscoe's twin sister Rachel in disguise, since the real Roscoe is the dead brother everyone is busy hiding. The second is Stanley Stubbers, the upper-class boyfriend who killed Roscoe and is now on the run from the law. Francis's quest to serve two masters at once, and above all to keep them apart, drives him into a frenzy of door-slamming, improvised chaos and audience-baiting, laced with live skiffle-band interludes. Corden won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.