Live Entertainment, part 2
Dec. 6th, 2004 02:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenRound the Horne Revisited
I took a group of friends to see this in late summer. It was absolutely superb - I laughed until it hurt. We went on a special TicketMaster deal where we got an after-show free drinkie or two and to talk with the cast and Brian Cooke, the last surviving writer from the original team, who worked with Barry Took and Marty Feldman and others on the original scripts.
The show's based on 95% original material from the 1960s radio shows, with some new material by Cooke. It's not even a best-of but a carefully-selected assortment showcasing the show's variety - from famous bits to obscure ones. All the old favourites are here: Julie Coolibah, Dame Cynthia Volestrangler and aging juvenile Binkie Huckaback, Rambling Syd Rumpo, Julian and Sandy and many more. Even Lady Daphne Whitethigh. "Today, we'll be doing Best End of Rhino. Of course, one of the problems of preparing Best End of Rhino is finding which is the best end of a rhino. Rhinos can tell, but their cause is not ours." I don't think I spotted Seamus Android but I could be wrong. Fragments from many shows are assembled into two marathon "programmes" of nearly an hour long plus an interval in the middle, complete with announcements from deadpan Douglas Smith.
It's staged ingeniously, as a recreation of the BBC Radio studio of circa 1967, complete with sound engineer and "ON AIR" signs. The cast, who manage not only to sound uncannily like Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden but even to look a little like them too - appear in the smart street clothes of the time, sitting at the rear of the "studio" until called up to the mic to do their bit. Every "ad lib" and interjection - mainly from "Williams", right down to his characteristic braying laugh - is meticulously scripted and faithfully reproduced.
Myself, I cherish Jools and Sand, especially in their guise of solicitors Bona Law. "Well, we'll 'ave a look at your case, like, but you understand, we only take civil cases in the afternoons. We've got a criminal practise that takes up all of our mornings." For non-initiates, I should point out that Jools and Sand are extremely camp and that in 1967 sodomy was still an offence. I could not help but say this bit aloud along with them, earning me a strong look and an "ooh, inne bold!"
So. Enough of this. There is a Christmas Special of RTHR, which has just started. As there never was a RTH Xmas Special, this time, there's both new material and stuff harvested from other classic BBC radio comedies of the time, from Muchbinding in the Marsh to The Navy Lark. Don't be put off by this - if it's done even a fraction as well as the summer show, it will be brilliant. It's on 'til some time in January. Who's up for a 2nd visit? No TM special this time, I fear, but we can always just go to the pub afterwards...
I took a group of friends to see this in late summer. It was absolutely superb - I laughed until it hurt. We went on a special TicketMaster deal where we got an after-show free drinkie or two and to talk with the cast and Brian Cooke, the last surviving writer from the original team, who worked with Barry Took and Marty Feldman and others on the original scripts.
The show's based on 95% original material from the 1960s radio shows, with some new material by Cooke. It's not even a best-of but a carefully-selected assortment showcasing the show's variety - from famous bits to obscure ones. All the old favourites are here: Julie Coolibah, Dame Cynthia Volestrangler and aging juvenile Binkie Huckaback, Rambling Syd Rumpo, Julian and Sandy and many more. Even Lady Daphne Whitethigh. "Today, we'll be doing Best End of Rhino. Of course, one of the problems of preparing Best End of Rhino is finding which is the best end of a rhino. Rhinos can tell, but their cause is not ours." I don't think I spotted Seamus Android but I could be wrong. Fragments from many shows are assembled into two marathon "programmes" of nearly an hour long plus an interval in the middle, complete with announcements from deadpan Douglas Smith.
It's staged ingeniously, as a recreation of the BBC Radio studio of circa 1967, complete with sound engineer and "ON AIR" signs. The cast, who manage not only to sound uncannily like Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden but even to look a little like them too - appear in the smart street clothes of the time, sitting at the rear of the "studio" until called up to the mic to do their bit. Every "ad lib" and interjection - mainly from "Williams", right down to his characteristic braying laugh - is meticulously scripted and faithfully reproduced.
Myself, I cherish Jools and Sand, especially in their guise of solicitors Bona Law. "Well, we'll 'ave a look at your case, like, but you understand, we only take civil cases in the afternoons. We've got a criminal practise that takes up all of our mornings." For non-initiates, I should point out that Jools and Sand are extremely camp and that in 1967 sodomy was still an offence. I could not help but say this bit aloud along with them, earning me a strong look and an "ooh, inne bold!"
So. Enough of this. There is a Christmas Special of RTHR, which has just started. As there never was a RTH Xmas Special, this time, there's both new material and stuff harvested from other classic BBC radio comedies of the time, from Muchbinding in the Marsh to The Navy Lark. Don't be put off by this - if it's done even a fraction as well as the summer show, it will be brilliant. It's on 'til some time in January. Who's up for a 2nd visit? No TM special this time, I fear, but we can always just go to the pub afterwards...
