The Odd Couple
Theatre Royal Sydney
The Tony Award-winning hit classic comedy by Neil Simon, The Odd Couple, is in its last two weeks at Theatre Royal Sydney. It must close on 28 July. Audiences and critics alike have been rolling in the aisles with laughter and praising the production.
Starring as Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple are Shane Jacobson and Todd McKenney, the archetypal odd couple, as different as chalk and cheese, but best mates and constant collaborators. Since they met on the Channel 7 TV series The Real Full Monty several years ago, the friends have worked together on TV in Mates on a Mission and The All New Monty, and on stage in The Rocky Horror Show and Hairspray (as husband and wife).
Joining Shane and Todd are stage and screen stars Lucy Durack (Legally Blonde, Upper Middle Bogan) and Penny McNamee (Home and Away, City of Angels) as Cecily Pigeon and Gwendolyn Pigeon, the giggly pair of English sisters who live upstairs from Oscar. Lucy and Penny have been best friends since they played alongside each other in the original Australian cast of the Broadway blockbuster musical Wicked.
The poker loving friends of Oscar are played by John Batchelor (Sea Patrol, Red Dog), Laurence Coy (Ladies in Black, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), Jamie Oxenbould (Chapter Two, Last of the Red Hot Lovers) and Anthony Taufa (Black is the New White, A Christmas Carol), with Julia Ohannessian (Hamlet, Accidental Death of an Anarchist), Berynn Schwerdt (The Crucible, Much Ado About Nothing) and Hayden Spencer (Deadloch, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) as understudies.
“Sydney is loving Neil Simon’s laugh a minute comedy and this brilliant cast, led by Shane and Todd,” said producer John Frost for Crossroads Live. “Get your tickets now before we leave town in two weeks’ time.”
The Odd Couple opened on Broadway in March 1965 and ran for 16 months. Directed by Mike Nichols, the play starred Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art Carney as Felix Ungar and gained Tony Awards for Best Script, Best Actor (Walter Matthau), Best Direction of a Play and Best Scenic Design, and was nominated for Best Play. In the decades since its premiere, Neil Simon’s Tony Award winning play about friendship, divorce and misunderstandings has been recreated for film and television several times. In 1968 it was filmed with Jack Lemmon as Felix opposite Matthau, and in 1970 it was remade for television with Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar. Along the way several other derivative works and spin-offs have been produced, including a female version and even a kids cartoon with a (neat) cat and a (messy) dog.
Two suddenly single pals — a sloppy sportswriter and a fastidious news writer — strain their friendship by becoming roommates and unconsciously repeating the same mistakes they made in the marriages they just left. Neurotic and neat freak Felix Ungar is thrown out by his wife, and moves in with his slovenly friend Oscar Madison. The characteristics that drove each of them to leave their wives soon have them at each other’s throats in this classic comedy.
It started as a play and Broadway laughed. A movie and a TV series followed and the whole world laughed. Now, laugh all over again with this hilarious new Australian stage production of The Odd Couple.
★ ★ ★ ★ “Jacobson and McKenney… dream team casting” – Sydney Morning Herald
★ ★ ★ ★ “An entertaining, beautifully paced production that delivers a fresh take on a classic commercial comedy” – The Age
★ ★ ★ ★ “Plenty of charm and chuckles. You can’t go wrong with this.” – Limelight
★ ★ ★ ★ “Entertaining. Hilarious. A brilliant comedic construct.” – Stagenoise
★ ★ ★ ★ “An outrageously funny show” – Theatre Matters
“Delivers laugh after laugh. A joy to watch” – Stage Whispers
