Hugh had the starring role of Philip in Ben Elton's first West End stage play, Gasping, which premiered at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in June 1990. The play was a satire on the notion of greedy entrepreneurs marketing the last free commodity in Britain: air. John Peter in the Sunday Times described it as "...a poisonously funny morality play....The setting is Lockheart Industries, run by one Sir Chiffley Lockheart, who is played by Bernard Hill as a sexless, ferret-eyed monster, both plummy and common....He employs a slick but entirely illiterate ideas-man, who is a flashy fire-eater at conferences but an utter drip everywhere else....As Hugh Laurie plays him, he combines the shyness of a young Norman Tebbit with the gentleness of the old Norman Tebbit." [Note:Tebbit is a more-than-usually crass and overbearing Conservative politician.]
More reviews:
"A stunning performance from Hugh Laurie as a corporate yes-man who finally sees the light." - The Independent, June 17, 1990
"Laurie, his gawky yelps undermining his self-importance, is more interesting, if implausible as a high-flyer. Perhaps the evening's most enjoyable moments are set-pieces in which he or [Simon] Mattacks mime being murderously massaged in an executive gym or coping with five portable phones simultaneously." - Benedict Nightingale, Times
"Bernard Hill and Hugh Laurie do a highly droll Laurel and Hardy act as the fat magnate and his skinny toady who dream up the idea of marketing wonder-whiffs." - Maureen Paton, Express
"...winningly played by Hugh Laurie and Simon Mattacks....Everyone... is out to give the impression that feeling is for wimps. A gradually emerging exception to this rule is Hugh Laurie's Philip, who has let you see all along that under the sprayed-on bullishness, he is an innocent chump who might, in time, sprout a conscience." - Paul Taylor
"Hugh Laurie confirms that he is a master of light comedy, not only in his virtuoso scenes (like the one where he is put through his paces by an invisible masseur), but also in his small gestures and fleeting reactions."- John Gross
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