Canadian Piano Show Fails To Strike A Chord
Date: 24 November 1999
Despite excellent reviews the Canadian show Two Pianos Four Hands is to close on 5 December after only eight weeks at the Comedy Theatre.
The joint creation of Canadian actors Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt - each abandoned the piano for the stage quite early on in their careers - this unusual entertainment focuses on the importance of the piano in their formative years - the lessons, the teachers, the hopes, the disappointments.
Their only props are two Steinway grand pianos
Michael Coveney, reviewing the show in the Daily Mail, wrote 'this delightful 90-minute cabaret confounds all expectations,' while Benedict Nightingale in The Times found it 'enormously enjoyable,' and the Sunday Telegraph's John Gross 'altogether compelling.'
Both actors prove to be more than competent pianists, turning their four hands to everything from Bach to My Funny Valentine. Between them they play some 20 different characters.
They were only contracted to play two months in London, so the show's closure will not be such a disappointment for them. The joint producers, Ed and David Mirvish and Paul Elliott's E & B Productions, had planned to bring a take-over cast of Simon Robson and Simon Egerton, but the box office wasn't brisk enough to sustain a cast change.
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