My Thoughts 20/10/2021

A play I really enjoyed, which was on the WestEnd and then came to Canterbury, is One Man, Two Guvnors. It was written by Richard Bean, and is an English adaptation of Servant of Two Masters – a 1743 Commedia dell’arte style comedy play by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni.

The play replaces the original Italian period setting, with Brighton in 1963. It is about an out of work skiffle player, Francis Henshall, who becomes separately employed by two men – Roscoe Crabbe, a gangster, and Stanley Stubbs, an upper class twit.

Francis tries to keep the two men from meeting, in order to avoid each of them learning that Francis is also working for the other. I thought of this play today when listening the reading from St Paul’s letter to the Romans.

“You cannot be slaves of sin that leads to death and at the same time slaves of obedience that leads to righteousness.”

There can be a tug of war within us, where our feelings, emotions and desires pull us in different directions. The way to deal with this is in prayer. We listen and discern the way the spirit is leading us. We begin each day by offering ourselves to God.

We commit ourselves, by God’s grace, to working for just one ‘guvnor’.