ROME'S Sistine Chapel was last month the centre of world attention as the cardinals gathered to decide their new Pope - and 500 years ago it was the centre of another drama as controversy raged over its ceiling.
Talented but precocious sculptor Michelangelo had been engaged for the job - he had hardly any experience of painting, was constantly falling out with his employers and his employees and the whole project was way behind schedule.
Step into this scenario two contractors - one who is new to the job and one who actually knows more than his moody boss - and you have the basis for a new comedy which opens in Birmingham tomorrow.
On The Ceiling is the first play written by actor, comedian and novelist Nigel Planer and features Ron Cook and Ralf Little as the hapless contractors.
It took Nigel, who is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the dippy hippy Neil in the comedy The Young Ones and his role in founding London's Comedy Store and Comic Strip clubs, two years of research to put together his play.
Reading his way through countless studies of the artist, the controversy surrounding the painting of the Sistine Chapel and the period, it took Nigel nearly as long to complete his play as it took Michelangelo to complete his artwork. And the original spark of the idea lay much further back in time.
"The idea actually came from a conversation with a friend who was telling me about these two men who had worked for Michelangelo but had been fired. He suggested their conversation would make a great double act as so much was going wrong around them.
"It was just one of those ideas which never quite went away. The final play is basically a couple of guys talking on a building site - it just happens to be that the building site is the Sistine Chapel.
"And they had a real sense of grievance. One is a master and the other an apprentice. The master is very experienced and has pretty much been showing Michelangelo how to do all the work as he had no experience. And yet he is asking why it is that he is doing all the work but Michelangelo is the man getting all the credit. He is quite bitter as he sees it as a group effort with one man getting all the credit."
Despite having appeared in countless television programmes and shows across the country, Nigel admits he is a bit nervous as On The Ceiling is the first play he has written. "The whole process is so different," he says. "As the actors begin to take ownership of the play you have to be able to let them do that and move away from it. Both Ron and Ralf are very good actors and you have to trust them to take on the play.
"Opening night as an actor is very nerve-racking but at the same time you have so much to do on stage that you quickly forget about that, but as a writer sitting in the audience watching it, I think it is probably a nightmare." l On The Ceiling opens tomorrow night at Birmingham Repertory Thea-tre until May 28, for ticket information contact 0121 236 4455 or www. birmingham-rep.co.uk
