Those of you who know me, or who have been around here for a while, know that Friends is like water to me. And I drink more water than you think is healthy. I’ve needed Friends as a sort of lifeblood since I was a wee behbeh watching it on live TV. With everything you’ve ever said to me, I’ve immediately thought of the most applicable line from Friends in response and smiled to myself. Instead of my daily dose of viewing therapy (it’s not weird) one recent night, I went over to Wilton’s Music Hall (my fave London venue because I can pee at home and barely need shoes) to catch Brendan Murphy’s absolutely hysterical one-man show ‘Friend (The One With Gunther)’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 70-minute romp features Murphy in a sometimes-chaotic constantly energetic rehashing of all 10 seasons of the best show ever made from the perspective of the barista with hair brighter than the sun. It’s not so much an impression of Gunther that Murphy is giving in his portrayal, as he doesn’t waste time trying to act or sound like him, but more of an homage, a pledge of allegiance to appreciating what Gunther did as the only legitimate candidate for the oft-debated slot of ‘7th friend’. Gunther was in the most episodes after the main 6 cast members – 148 of the total 236 – and became a necessary part of the show, as familiar and constant as the couch in Central Perk. He’s usually a welcome sight to catch in the background, but when he comes more to the fore, he steals the show. His limited but potent lines reminded us that he was probably the best representation of our civilian selves on that screen, with his estimation and his annoyance with the main six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In ‘Friend’, Murphy is a whirlwind of energy running around that stage. Gunther would never move so fast, but Murphy is instantly winning nonetheless. I started cracking up fast and furious right at the start when Murphy does a win-sided phincall and is telling his friend “yeah I’ll be about 70 minutes…yeah I expanded it a bit since the Fringe.” I was in hard on this comedy even though it had nothing to do with Friends yet. That sentiment continued as Murphy morphed into Gunther and told his early childhood tale: a clear paraphrase of Dr. Evil’s monologue in Austin Powers, you know the one, where he says his father claims he invented the question mark? I think husbo and I were the only ones who realized it was this excellent monologue, not because it’s niche but because we were the only non-drunks. These opening segments had me hooked and they were all clearly Murphy’s brand of comedy, not Gunther’s, which makes me want to see more from him on other subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then it moved on to the main subject, ‘Friends’ from Gunther’s perspective. Murphy told us the expected details – how he was in love with Rachel and how much he hated Ross, etc – as he attempted a rapid-fire run-through of every season and all the big plot points and what it was like for Gunther as opposed to Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe. As we went on, the show seemed to split into two aspects: the portrayal of Gunther sharing the deets as he lived them, vs a non-Gunther entity sharing a history of the show and its other minor players. The attempted run-through of all 10 seasons regardless of their import to Gunther’s story plus all the minor characters that Gunther never interacted with felt unnecessary and too divided from a core concept. And the non-Gunther-entity segments included a little too much audience work, like some trivia that felt too separated from a Gunther tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, these are just thoughts I’ve having thinking of it as a play and trying to consider its central thesis. But treated as a comedy show, who cares about a thesis if you are laughing your ass off the whole time. It doesn’t matter that the thread of what Gunther experienced is dropped at some point, and it doesn’t matter that Murphy’s tenuous enactment of our fave side character becomes more and more detached. It’s all really funny, most of all when he leans hard into his crush on Rachel and hatred of Ross and comes out the other end with the “Stan” segment, a work of complete and inspired genius. I was falling off my chair at this part – it’s so perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This One With Gunther was more of a tribute to ‘Friends’ as a whole in the guise of being a tribute to this one fan favorite character rather than a legitimately full tribute to this character. However, it still felt like such a lovely treat to be able to experience so soon after the death of James Michael Tyler. My connection to Friends runs real deep (as it does for so many people even though I never could believe anyone else knew or loved it as much as I did until I saw this show and accepted that Murphy probably does) and so too does my assumed connection to all the characters after a lifetime of considering them like actual friends. Gunther is the first biggie that we’ve had to say goodbye to in real life and it’s a weird thing to grapple with, the death of someone you didn’t know who played someone you did know but who didn’t know you. It’s complicated to try to grieve for that person. What does it matter that it’s all a TV show?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m thus grateful to this show for giving me a timely outlet for thinking about Gunther a little more, and so glad that it turned out to be a hysterical original show and a great time. I’m only a little bit still full of hot rage fire at the audience, who was 90% messy sloppy drunks. They were so loud, literally shouting to each other, asking their friends at the other end of the row and behind them (jfc) if they wanted some of the wine they were passing around. They shouted to Murphy as though the show was a conversation, preempting his next lines (nb he was not asking for call and response). They were the kind of people that so badly wanted to prove that they knew all the inside jokes that they would ruin the joke for everyone else. People, you don’t have to prematurely scream ‘oh smelly cat!’ to show the rest of us that you are in on the joke. It’s ‘Friends’. EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is in on the joke. They were the kind of audience members that are blatant pathetic attention seekers, the ones who badly want everyone’s attention on them instead of the onstage talent and who you pity as a result but hate them for ruining your experience. It’s a testament to how much fun this show is that they didn’t completely ruin our time, though they were that bad that it was a close call. Brendan actually worked in jokes about the dozen-large group we were amidst, because he had to, they were that obviously disruptive. I’m mad that people like this who have no concern for anyone else around them in life get away with shit like this with no repercussions. They had a blast while we heard their loud chatter over what Brendan was saying a lot of time and suffered for it. When a few of them put their phones up and started filming, an usher halfheartedly waved to them to say no and then left. Great enforcement guys! They didn’t even see her. Anyway, this audience was full of pathetic pieces and that was a shame. Gunther would call these people azels, and then we serve them sneezers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Those of you who know me, or who have been around here for a while, know that Friends is like water to me. And I drink […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,160,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-television","category-theatre"],"yoast_head":"\n