Double act

Gallagher and Shean, a popular vaudeville act of the 1920s

The model for the modern double act began in the British music halls and the American vaudeville scene of the late 19th century. Here, the straight man was needed to repeat the lines of the comic because audiences were noisy. A dynamic soon developed in which the straight man was a more integral part of the act, setting up jokes for the comic to deliver a punch line. Popular draws included acts like George Burns and Gracie Allen (who initially operated with Burns as the comic but quickly switched roles when Gracie's greater appeal was recognized), Abbott and Costello, Flanagan and Allen, Gallagher and Shean, Smith and Dale, and Lyons and Yosco. The dynamic evolved, with Abbott and Costello using a modern and recognizable formula in routines such as Who's on First? in the 1930s and Flanagan and Allen using "cross talking".

Though vaudeville lasted into the 1930s, its popularity waned because of the rise of motion pictures. Some failed to survive the transition to movies and disappeared. By the 1920s, double acts were beginning to attract worldwide fame more readily through the silent era. The comedy was not derived from "cross-talk" or clever verbal exchanges, but through slapstick routines and the actions of the characters.

The first double act to gain worldwide fame through film was the Danish duo Ole & Axel, who made their first film together in 1921. The latter half of the same decade introduced the world the unimitable team of Laurel and Hardy. The pair had never worked together on stage (they did as of 1940), though both had worked in vaudeville—Stan Laurel with Charlie Chaplin as part of Fred Karno's Army and Oliver Hardy as a singer. Laurel could loosely be described as the comic, though the pair were one of the first not to fit the mold in the way that many double acts do, with both taking a fairly equal share of the laughs. The pair first worked together as a double act in the 1927 film Duck Soup. The first Laurel and Hardy film was called Putting Pants on Philip though their familiar characters had not yet been established. The first film they both appeared in was Lucky Dog in 1917. Laurel and Hardy adapted well to silent films, both being skilled at slapstick, and their nonverbal interplay with each other and the audience became famous—Laurel's cry and Hardy's downtrodden glances to the camera whenever something went wrong—and were carried over to their later talkies. They were one of the few silent acts who made a successful transition to spoken word pictures in the 1930s, showing themselves to be equally adept at verbal wordplay.

In 1940 was the release of Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea, their final film for long-term producer and collaborator Hal Roach. Later their popularity declined. In 1940s America the double act remained a cinema draw, developing into the "buddy movie" genre, with Abbott and Costello making the transition from stage to screen and the first of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's Road to... series in 1940. Further acts followed. For example, the first pairing of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis occurred in 1946. About the same time The Bickersons became popular on radio. Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner started their 2000 Year Old Man recordings and subsequent television appearances in 1961. The genre has continued to exist in cinema while making a successful transition to radio and later TV via The Smothers Brothers and Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.

In Britain, double acts were confined to theatres and radio until the late 1950s, when double acts such as Morecambe and Wise and Mike and Bernie Winters slowly began the transition to TV on variety shows such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium. These acts came into their own in the mid- to late-1960s. When Morecambe and Wise teamed up with writer Eddie Braben, they began to redefine what was meant by a double act, with Wise, the straight man, being developed into a comic character in his own right. They provided the link between music hall and modern comedy for double acts.[5] As the two leading double acts of the day, Morecambe and Wise and the Winters brothers enjoyed a playful rivalry—the Winters mocked the slight edge Morecambe and Wise had over them in popularity, while Morecambe, when asked what he and Wise would have been if not comedians, replied "Mike and Bernie Winters".

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the traditional formula was shunned by The Two Ronnies, who completely dispensed with the need for a straight man, and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, two Oxbridge-educated comedians who used the double act to deliver satire and edgy comedy.

Internationally the most popular double act of the 1970s was the Italian duo Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. The team had already made three straight westerns together during the 1960s but turned their act towards slapstick in their fourth (They Call Me Trinity, 1970), with massive success.

Light entertainment in Britain in the 1970s was dominated by Morecambe and Wise, who enjoyed impressive ratings, especially on their Christmas specials. Although Mike and Bernie Winters's popularity declined, The Two Ronnies' success grew while Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sporadically produced acclaimed work, in particular, their controversial recordings as Derek and Clive from 1976 to 1978.

The mid-to-late 1970s saw a resurgence in American double acts. Blazing Saddles (1974) featured a memorable performance by Mel Brooks and Harvey Korman (who later teamed up again in Brooks's 1981 follow-up History of the World, Part I). Saturday Night Live, first broadcast in 1975, provided an outlet for comedians to appear in sketches as double acts and continues to do so. It was here that Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi honed their characters The Blues Brothers, who were soon pulled to fame in the 1980 buddy movie of the same name. Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor also embarked on a string of successful buddy films in the 1970s. Cheech & Chong also gained massive popularity during this time.

Occasionally, the straight-man/funny-man dynamic appeared in unexpected contexts between characters not normally thought of as comics. This often appeared in the James T. Kirk (William Shatner)/Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) relationship in several episodes of the original Star Trek series.

Morecambe and Wise had dominated British light entertainment throughout the 1970s, but their presence waned in the early 1980s. When Morecambe died moments after finishing a solo show in 1984 (his last words were 'I'm glad that's over'), the best-loved double act in British comedy came to an end, and several new acts emerged. The two distinct groups could not have been more different.

In the wake of Not the Nine O'Clock News, The Young Ones and the breakthrough onto television of 'alternative comedy' came French and Saunders; Fry and Laurie; Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson; Hale and Pace; and Smith and Jones. These edgier comics were brasher and crude—comedy's answer to punk rock.[5] They developed the satire and vulgarity of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore rather than the more gentle humour of Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies. In fact, Smith and Jones showed blatant disregard for their predecessors, openly mocking the Two Ronnies (this may have been a factor in Ronnie Barker's decision to retire from comedy in the late 1980s.[5])

The early 1990s saw comedy become "the new rock and roll"[5] in Britain and this was inherent in the work of Newman and Baddiel and Punt and Dennis on The Mary Whitehouse Experience. Newman and Baddiel, in particular, symbolized this rock and roll attitude by playing the biggest ever British comedy gig at Wembley Arena. With this came tension. Newman and Baddiel fell out with Punt and Dennis, not wishing to share screen time with them, and then with each other. David Baddiel went on to form another successful double act with Frank Skinner.

The 1990s also saw the introduction of one of comedy's strangest yet most successful double acts in Reeves and Mortimer. They at the same time deconstructed light entertainment[5] and paid homage to many of the classic double acts (Vic Reeves would even do an Eric Morecambe impression on Vic Reeves Big Night Out). They simultaneously used very bizarre, idiosyncratic humour and traditional double act staples (in later years they became increasingly reliant on violent slapstick).

Another double act that emerged in the mid to late 1990s was Lee & Herring, who combined a classic clash of personalities (downbeat and rational Lee contrasting with energetic, childish Herring) with very ironic, often satirical humour.

Also appearing in the latter half of the decade were Adam and Joe, whose low-budget, self-produced Channel 4 series The Adam and Joe Show was a very sharp combination of TV and movie parodies and satirical looks at various elements of youth culture.

Indian cinema also had its share of the double act, with Tamil cinema comedians Goundamani and Senthil teaming up for several films throughout the decade, similarly Kota Srinivasa Rao and Babu Mohan in Telugu Cinema.

In Sri Lanka cinema, the famous double act is found with comedians Bandu Samarasinghe and Tennison Cooray where they pioneered Sri Lankan commercial film industry in the 2000s.

Mitchell and Webb are another successful double act from the 2000s onwards, having multiple sketch shows on both radio and TV as well as starring in the award-winning sitcom Peep Show.

Most of the most successful double acts in the early 2000s take their inspiration from the odder strain of double-act comedy spearheaded by Reeves and Mortimer. Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who had previously worked with Reeves and Mortimer, also took inspiration from the Two Ronnies. The Mighty Boosh also played with the formula but essentially remained traditional at their roots. Another popular current light entertainment/presenting comedy act is Ant & Dec, who are a very basic yet effective example of a double act.

In early 2012, comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele appeared in a sketch comedy TV show titled Key & Peele airing on Comedy Central.

Many modern-day YouTube Channels like to use this trope to their advantage. Some examples include Smosh, Dan and Phil, the Game Grumps, and Rhett and Link of the YouTube channel Good Mythical Morning,

The double act has become a popular theme in British sitcoms. One of the earliest examples of this was the relationship between Tony Hancock and Sid James in the Galton and Simpson series Hancock's Half Hour. James played a down-to-earth character while Hancock was pompous and had delusions of grandeur, and the comedy was derived from the two playing off each other's characteristics.

A common trend in sitcoms is to place the double act in a situation where they are forced together through uncontrollable circumstance. In another Galton and Simpson production, Steptoe and Son, a son, with great ambition, was forced to live with his elderly, manipulative father as a rag and bone man. The comedy derives from the way the characters interact in their tempestuous relationship. The series also has more heart-rending moments as the son despairs at his inability to escape his needy, selfish, grasping father.

Porridge saw "an habitual criminal", Fletcher (played by Ronnie Barker, already famous for his comedy partnership with Ronnie Corbett) and a young, naive, first-time prisoner, Lennie Godber. The two would bicker but endured a relationship of mutual respect. Barker also formed a partnership with David Jason in Open All Hours, with Jason playing Granville while Barker played Albert Arkwright. Many don't see this as a comedy duo, but the straight-man element coupled with Barker's funny-man antics on the show are still compressed into the script.

Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson combined their success in sitcoms (The Young Ones) and as a double act (The Dangerous Brothers) in 1991 when they created Bottom. Their characters are a pair of sad, pathetic losers forced together by their mutual hopelessness. However, unlike earlier examples of such, the characters in Bottom absolutely hate each other, exacerbating their despair. This often leads to slapstick violence, such as hitting each other with frying pans. Mayall and Edmonson have said Bottom aimed to be more than just a series of toilet gags—it was meant to be a cruder cousin to plays like Waiting for Godot about the pointlessness of life.

Other popular double acts in British sitcoms include complex relationships involving status and superiority themes: in Dad's Army, the social climbing envy of Captain George Mainwaring, to his right-hand man (Sergeant Arthur Wilson) who is of higher status than him; and in Red Dwarf, the working class everyman Dave Lister to the middle class but socially-awkward Arnold Rimmer. However, the most prominent double act is that of an intelligent person and his inferior sidekick, such as Basil and Manuel of Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and Baldrick of Blackadder, or Ted and Father Dougal of the Irish sitcom Father Ted.

In recent years, double acts as sitcoms appear to have gone full circle, as illustrated by the cult success of The Mighty Boosh. For the relationship between the two main characters this series uses a formula very similar to that between Sid and Tony in Hancock's Half Hour – that of a pompous character whose best friend can see right through him and brings him back down to Earth. A similar dynamic is used in Peep Show in which the characters of Mitchell and Webb were adapted for the sitcom formula. In this case both characters suffer from pomposity. The difference between the pair is the laidback, cool arrogance (yet stupidity) of Jeremy and the intellectual arrogance (yet social-awkwardness) of Mark.