Poor old Max Hastings. There was the writer and former Daily Telegraph editor last week, dragged up to London from his Berkshire idyll to see One Man, Two Guvnors – the National theatre's widely lauded comedy, now transferred to the West End following sell-out performances at the Lyttleton and a UK tour – with his wife Penny, only to face the unexpected humiliation of being ridiculed on stage in front of a packed-out Adelphi theatre.
According to an article in today's Daily Mail, Hastings' tickets were exchanged at the last minute for seats in the front row, where early on in the show leading actor James Corden unceremoniously seized Hastings and another audience member, and forced them on to the stage to help him shift an apparently immovable trunk. A series of humiliating jokes ensued: "Corden gazed up at me," Hastings writes, "with the complacency of a young tiger which sees its breakfast goat securely tethered."
Hastings claims that his tickets were exchanged specifically in order to make him the butt of the joke; a spokeswoman for the show denies this, saying that there is no pre-planning of which audience members Corden chooses to pick on. And surely anybody who buys tickets for One Man, Two Guvnors – a riotous, Carry On-style updating of Carlo Goldoni's commedia dell'arte play A Servant to Two Masters – can hardly be unaware of the fact that the play comes packed with farcical slapstick and audience participation.
The suitcase gag in which Hastings became an unwitting participant happens every night: in his most recent review of the show, the Guardian's Michael Billington describes Corden coercing "a recalcitrant couple" on to the stage, and later being pelted with pork pies from the stalls. Other moments of audience involvement include a scene in which Corden asks if anybody can offer him something to eat; an audience member at one early performance reported that someone gave him a hummus sandwich, at which Corden cried out: "Oh God, is this a Guardian readers' night?"
This same moment has been repeated throughout the run, suggesting it's a little less spontaneous than initially thought – but still, anyone who joins the audience of One Man, Two Guvnors should ensure they're as capable of laughing at themselves as at Corden's antics.
