Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been dead for more than 50 years, but time has not diminished either their reputation or their talents, which was why the auditorium was almost packed out for Searchlight Theatre's loving tribute to the greatest comedy double act there ever was.
Laurel and Hardy were in their sixties when they embarked upon a grand tour of the UK in the early 1950s. They'd recently finished filming their last ever movie (the disastrous but overlooked Atoll K aka Utopia), which had not been a pleasurable experience at all, so they were not prepared for the waves of adulation and adoration that greeted them everywhere they went on this tour of the nation's music halls and theatres. Indeed, when they sailed across to Ireland they were greeted by hordes of fans at the water's edge, and the church bells chimed their trademark Cuckoo Song, provoking tears of joy from the ageing boys.
