“Dave and Tom’s: A Tribute to Dave and
Tom”
Santa Monica Playhouse
Saturday, Oct. 14
David Beeler and Tom Konkle, best known as the British comedy
team that brought laughter to audiences all over the globe, died
Saturday at 8 p.m.
Their deaths were confirmed in the play “Dave and
Tom’s: A Tribute to Dave and Tom,” and they are
survived by repeated performances at the Santa Monica Playhouse
until Oct. 29.
The show, which is a tribute to these dearly departed souls, is
made ghoulishly gleeful in that the tribute is hosted by none other
than Dave and Tom themselves.
The pair isn’t actually British (only Konkle is), but
apparently they have nine lives ““ or at least two, as they
claim to have been deceased well in advance of the tribute
show’s premiere.1
But willing suspension of disbelief isn’t too hard to do
here, because these fictitious Brits run through sketch after
sketch without losing any steam. The audience is thrown into a
world where anything is possible and everything is gut-bustingly
funny.
Beeler and Konkle’s chemistry make “Dave and
Tom’s” a treat to watch.
They build off each other’s wild gestures, energy and
antics as if they’ve known each other all their lives, even
though they met in 1999. The wide range of sketches require Beeler
and Konkle to play characters who are polar opposites of each
man’s previous part, yet the duo pull it off with ease.
One of the best sketches is “Doctor Braintree,”
which happens early on in the show. Tom plays a doctor who has been
having an affair with Dave’s wife for years and just
discovered test results that show that Dave is going to die in
three months. The problem is, these results have been lost for
three months, and today is Dave’s date with the grim
reaper.
The “Braintree” sketch seamlessly turns into the
longest death scene ever ““ the next sketch, “Thus Die
I” ““ as Dave proceeds to die after being shot hundreds
of times while Tom flashes cards that say “The
Godfather,” “The Godfather II,”
“Scarface,” “Platoon,” “The
Terminator” and so on.
It may be the longest death sequence an audience has seen in
ages, but it’s also the best: Beeler’s facial
expressions are priceless, and the amount of positions he can
contort himself into make Jenna Jameson pale in comparison.
Another excellent sketch is “The Publicist,” which
involves Konkle dressed as Dave and Tom’s old, frumpy female
publicist, complete with glasses and a wild hairdo to match. This
is the best monologue in the entire show, as the publicist gets
drunker and drunker, stumbling offstage and returning with dark
stains all over her dress. She talks about how having ample parking
outside a theater is the secret to a show’s success, only to
wonder aloud, “Why do I keep getting dropped off in parking
lots with strange men?”
Dave and Tom may be dead (kind of), but their tribute show is
more lively and hoppin’ than a grasshopper on speed. In other
words, don’t miss it, or you’ll be gravely sorry.
1 Tom Konkle was misidentified as American. He is actually
British.