The Ornate Johnsons Christmas Show
Laurence Relton

London

Jonathan Rayner



It was a pigeon squatting in the bathroom that prompted actor and comedy sketch writer Laurence Relton to train as a solicitor. The pigeon had flown through a hole in the roof and was nesting among the shampoo bottles and rubber ducks. And since Mr Relton was clearing just £1 per gig in a comedy show, it was going to take him a long time to pay for roof repairs. 'It was time to try out this fat-cat lawyer thing,' he says.



But there is much more to Mr Relton than being a solicitor. He is one of the brains behind the highly successful comedy act The Ornate Johnsons, which has already had a 12-night sell-out residency at the Soho Theatre in London and won the Brighton Festival comedy award. Mr Relton and the team are also developing a series of one-hour comedy specials for BBC4. 'I'm writing a screenplay for Peter Cattaneo, the director of "The Full Monty", and am in early stage development with a Hollywood studio,' Mr Relton adds. 'And then there's our Christmas show.'



As an undergraduate, Mr Relton read law with Italian, and at university he met and began acting with the four other members of the comedy sketch group that was to become The Ornate Johnsons.



Why the strange name? The group is called this in deference to Mr Ornate Johnson, a character in one of their sketches who was a prospective US presidential candidate. 'We all liked the name,' Mr Relton says.

He went to law school on graduation, studying during the day and performing with the group in the evening. And then, with the Law Society finals under his belt, he did what all career-orientated and responsible law graduates would do - spent the next year performing comedy full-time.



'Things slowly began to disintegrate,' he says, with more than a touch of understatement. 'We were receiving £75 per show, split between the four members of the group. After expenses, we were looking at a tidy £1 each. It was then that I decided my parents were absolutely right - it is a good idea to have a profession to fall back on.'



Since then, Mr Relton has worked for Brosio Casati (now Allen & Overy) in Rome and Milan, City firm Withers, two US firms which both closed down shortly after he joined, and then City firm Watson Farley & Williams, where he remained until early this year. Reflecting on his 12 years in practice as a corporate lawyer, he says: 'A good sense of humour protects you from the vagaries of the more charismatic sort of partner. It also helps you get through ten-hour client meetings.



'And actually, a modicum of humour or artistic flair is helpful to any practising solicitor. It helps you to take a slightly skewed view of things and spot the problems in contracts, for example - which maybe explains why I've known so many lawyers who are creative as musicians, painters or authors.'



He adds: 'But they keep quiet about it, as though they're afraid to admit to interests outside the office and show less than 100% dedication to the job in hand. All this talk about work-life balance remains just that, I fear - talk.'



On leaving Watson Farley & Williams, Mr Relton signed on with virtual law firm Lawyers Direct. This enables him to freelance as a solicitor, as and when he wants, while pursuing his showbiz interests the rest of the time. At the moment he is concentrating on 'The Ornate Johnsons Christmas Show', which played to packed houses in Brighton this month and transfers to London for the run-up to Christmas.



It is a comical, cynical take on Christmas which manages to direct side-swipes at such diverse players as King Herod and the Virgin Mary. A grown-up Jesus Christ even puts in an appearance, reading a seasonal message from his dad (or should that be Dad?) and replying to queries from his fans.



The input of Mr Relton the lawyer is evident in some of the sketches. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, for instance, sues Santa Claus for discrimination in the workplace due to his brake light of a hooter. Santa is taken to the cleaners and reduced to his very last Little Helper. There is also an amusingly clichéd court scene, peopled by harrumphing judges and emotionally eloquent barristers, where the authors of some of the more wince-making Christmas pop hits are sentenced for crimes against humanity.



Mr Relton's influence also shows through in the Italian opera version of 'Only Fools and Horses', where the main characters bring a melodramatic touch of Peckham to the high art of La Scala.



Inevitably, in a show lasting 90 minutes, some sketches are less successful than others. A scene with Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain reduced to numbed incoherence by Christmas lunch ('To eat one sprout is unfortunate, to eat two...') was a case in point.



But overall 'The Ornate Johnsons Christmas Show' is colourful and witty, the verbal interplay leavened by song and dance.



The show is running every day except Sunday from 12 December to 23 December 2006 at the Hen & Chickens in Islington, north London