Comedian Lee Evans is to star in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Lee Evans' upcoming return to the West End stage as Gus in a revival of Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter should confirm the former Perrier Award winner as much more than a joker. Previous appearances as Leo Bloom in The Producers, and in Beckett's Endgame, when Evans more than held his own against the great Michael Gambon, suggest that he has every right to be taken very seriously as an actor. With his innate sense of comic timing, he should be able to handle every one of those famous pauses as if they were killer punchlines.
Coming the week before Jerry Springer creator Stewart Lee makes his Bush debut in his self-penned monologue What Would Judas Do?, which depicts the events of the last week of Jesus' life from Judas' point of view, it might be a good time to predict that 2007 will be the year in which stand-ups take over from Hollywood stars as British theatre box office's most bankable asset.
The comic turned straight actor is no more of a novelty than the actor turned comic. Ruby Wax, Josie Lawrence, and more recently accidental Perrier Award winners Will Adamsdale and Laura Solon, all trained as actors before finding greater fame in comedy. In any case, the divide between the comedy and theatre worlds is not as great as some might imagine - as the success of the West End production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest proved. On the opening night of the Comedy Store back in the early 1980s, Complicite's Simon McBurney could be found on stage next to Emma Thompson, and some regular punters on Sunday nights at the Comedy Store may not be aware that Lee Simpson is better known in theatrical circles as one quarter of one of the truly great theatre companies of the last decade, Improbable.
The revival in character comedy which requires acting skills and not just impeccable timing and delivery means that there is a generation of comics who can slip with ease between comedy and theatre and who have real bankability because of their ability to attract a crossover audience. Reece Shearsmith from The League of Gentlemen - currently finishing a run in The Producers and who has West End performances in both Art and As You Like It to his credit- is but one example.
The current TV vogue for casting big comic names in straight roles seems likely to be repeated more widely in theatre too. But as anyone who saw Catherine Tate's one-note performance in Doctor Who on Christmas Day or witnessed moments of pure Vicky Pollard in Matt Lucas' portrayal of Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows will know, although these star names may attract viewers they are not necessarily the best actors for the job. On stage, in particular, a big personality is not always sufficient substitute for a lack of technique. To be frank, last year's Edinburgh revival of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio by Phil Nichol's newly formed Comedians Theatre Company would have been a whole lot better if the cast had boasted a few more people who could act and fewer whose abilities are limited to making us laugh.
So before producers start signing up David Walliams and Matt Lucas to play Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting For Godot or casting Russell Brand as Hamlet, they might do well to remember that while West End theatre audiences initially seemed dazzled by the opportunity to see any Hollywood star in the flesh, they pretty soon worked out who could act and who didn't merit their West End berth. The same will happen with the comics.
