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Earlier this week, I went along with my grandson to see the new Muppets film, which is entitled, surprisingly, ‘The Muppets’.

Basically, the story is about three fans helping the Muppets get back together to save their old theatre from being demolished by a greedy oil tycoon. The cost of the rescue mission is $10 million, and the only way they can raise that amount of money is to put on a show… which the Muppets have not done in twenty years. The big question is… will they still be as popular as they were?

I haven’t been to the cinema for quite some time, plus a month or two, and I very rarely watch recently-made films on television. Can you guess why? However, it is no secret that I am an admirer of the Muppets… see my blog, CLASS ACT #3, 22.7.2011.

Overall, the film was very enjoyable, and a pleasant surprise. I laughed quite a lot. Apparently, in 2007, Jason Segel, who stars in the film, approached Disney, along with screenwriter and director, Nicholas Stoller, with the idea of writing the screenplay for a new Muppets movie. Segel stated that he wanted to do the film because the Muppets hadn’t appeared on the cinema screen since ‘Muppets In Space’, in 1999, and he felt that the younger generation was missing out on enjoying one of his childhood favorites.

This offering has been made with tender loving care. It is true to the Muppet ethos, and resists the temptation to bring them ‘up-to-date’! Maybe it would have had a bit more of a 'cutting edge' had Jim Henson been in charge, but overall, I think he would have approved.

I came across a member of the public’s review of the film, which read… “There's something in it for everybody, especially if you're in the mood for laughter and catchy musical numbers. The creative humour was a breath of fresh air. There is plenty breaking of the fourth wall and oh so much of that lovely deadpan irony and absurdist humour, reminiscent of old comedies like Airplane!” I agree wholeheartedly!

Something in it for everybody… laughter…catchy musical numbers… creative humour! That sounds a bit like what I have been advocating for pantomimes, doesn’t it, dear reader? And… breaking of the fourth wall to boot!

At the risk of repeating myself… again… I reiterate that we can all learn from people who are more skilled, knowledgeable, talented, and experienced than ourselves. Jim Henson and company created a distinctive, style for which those of us involved with comedy should be eternally grateful, and yet… the Muppets owe a debt to Commedia dell'Arte, which began in 16^th century Italy.

Quality never dates!

ONE MORE TIME

Quite recently I had a butcher’s at the Message Board of a well-known pantomime site, where someone claimed that they would be interested to hear people’s favourite songs “heard in panto this year.” I presume he or she meant season.

There were just two replies. The first was from a correspondent who had “particularly enjoyed” ‘Price Tag’, and ‘Dont (sic) stop beleiving (sic)’. The other stated “EVERYBODY uses ‘Don’t Stop Believing’!”, and made an appeal for more original songs in panto, or at least more original and imaginative song choices.” Everybody" indeed! That must have been quite a survey.

Neither of these songs meant anything to me, so I did a search on YouTube.

The video for ‘Price Tag’ featured some young woman, who I confess I would not have recognised had she fallen out of my cornflake packet. She cavorted, capered, and caterwauled. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the performance around minus six! Part way through, a gentleman appeared and began talking in some language I didn’t understand. I discovered that he is what is known as a rapper! Is it just a strange coincidence that all rappers suffer from photophobia? I concur with the person who said that the description ‘rap music’ was an oxymoron!

The video lasted 4 minutes, the girl wore 9 different outfits, and I presume to stop anyone getting bored, just one shot lasted for more than two seconds… a fair number were only a fraction of a second!

When I see modern so-called pop stars prancing and posing I think, forget it! Mick Jagger was doing it almost 50 years ago… and much better.

So to ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, from the ‘Glee’ television series, which so far, I have managed to avoid. The video starts with a good ethnic mix that is, I believe, almost obligatory in American television shows theses days. They chanted the word “dah”… at least, that is what it sounded like to me. One instinctively knew what was going to happen next…

A spotty youth steps forward in that dramatic pop operatic style, that is so popular these days, and he sings a snatch of an inane lyric as though it was the work of William Shakespeare. He is joined by a girl with a voice that would strip paint of a jumbo jet, who effectively shouts at him, in that dramatic pop operatic style that is so popular these days, and they hold out their hands to each other, echoing the iconic image of the hand of God giving life to Adam, painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. It’s just 50 seconds into the video, and I have already lost hope and interest.

Cut to some oiks playing (?) keyboard, guitars, and saxophones. It is obvious to anyone that they are not responsible for the music on the soundtrack that accompanies this offering.

The ethnics join in, there is a line, “It goes on and on and on and on…”, and that is exactly what it does.

This appears to me to be an ersatz version of ‘Fame’ (1982-87). As Monty Python might have said, “And now for something completely the same.”

To anyone who feels that I shouldn’t criticise in this way, my answer is… they started it. They chose to concoct those cinematic presentations, and make them available to all and sundry. If you're not mature enough to take criticism, you're too immature for praise!

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. This stuff is pretentious, derivative, so predictable, and virtually interchangeable. You’ve heard one, you’ve heard ‘em all.

Pantomime deserves better than this, and in my opinion, this could kill the genre stone dead. The more original and imaginative song choices are out there, but they were probably written quite some time ago, and you need to search for them.

I decided this very day to discover what musicals were currently being presented in London’s West End. Prior to looking, I had no idea what I would find, but I took a chance, and surprise, surprise! Out of the 23 listed I found the following 16…

BACKBEAT The story of how The Beatles ‘became’ The Beatles.

BLOOD BROTHERS (1983) by Willy Russell.

CHICAGO (1975) music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.

CRAZY FOR YOU (1992) Music and Lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.

DREAMBOATS & PETTICOATS THE MUSICAL Featuring songs from Roy Orbison, The Shadows, Eddie Cochran, Billy Fury, Chuck Berry and many more.

JERSEY BOYS The story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

LES MISERABLES (1980) Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg

MAMMA MIA Inspired by the songs of ABBA.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1986) Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart

ROCK OF AGES featuring 80's rock music.

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) Music by Nacio Herb Brown, lyrics by: Arthur Freed.

SWEENEY TODD - THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1979) Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

TOP HAT (1935) Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.

THRILLER LIVE Featuring the songs of Michael Jackson & The Jackson 5.

WE WILL ROCK YOU Musical with songs by Queen.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and E Y Harburg.

It’s not about choosing a song, it’s about choosing a musical number that fits in with the plot, the mood of the characters participating in it, and one with which you can do something to make it entertaining for a wide age range.

You can’t do the costume changes, the quick cutting etc. but that shouldn't stop you devising a good routine.

For example…You’ve got a scene in ‘Robinson Crusoe’, or ‘Dick Whittington’, or whatever, set in a jungle. A gorilla is involved in the ‘ghost scene’. Two native girls then fit the gorilla with a false shirt front (dickey), bow tie, and top hat. A female gorilla with a bow in her hair, and wearing a skirt enters, and we go into ‘Loving You Has made Me Bananas’, written and performed by Guy Marks, released in 1968, with three native girl singers standing by a microphone on a stand… see left.

You could write your own introduction to suit.

Native girl dancers enter, carrying inflatable bananas, and go into a Busby Berekely-inspired sequence...

It's certainly imaginative, and who knows, it might even be original! If you have never heard the song before, then as far as you are concerned, it's new.

Why am I so good to you?

CLASS ACT #10

Chita Rivera, George Dvorsky, and Bruce Adler, strutting their stuff with ‘Friendship’, words and music by Cole Porter, from the show, ‘DuBarry Was A Lady’, 1939. Dig those two-tone shoes! I have a pair, and my late brother was something of a connoisseur.

This is a knockout number with a lively lyric, but then Cole Porter was a wonderful wordsmith, noted for clever rhymes and complex forms.

Chita Rivera, a dancer, singer and actress, regarded as one of Broadway’s most accomplished and versatile performers, was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in 1933. Her father was Puerto Rican and her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent. In 1957, her electric performance as Anita in the Broadway premiere of ‘West Side Story’ brought her stardom. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

There isn’t much information on George Dvorsky (the tallest of the two men), other than he was born in 1959 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and has made a career as the nice guy romantic lead in musicals, performing all over the world.

Bruce Adler was born in New York City in 1944. His mother and father were well-established popular stars of the Yiddish theatre. He made his stage debut at an early age, with his parents, in an act called The Three Adlers, on the bill at the London Palladium with Sophie Tucker in the 1950s. He appeared in Broadway musicals, and performed in vaudeville song and dance revues which featured Yiddish folk songs. In Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ he sang the opening song, ‘Arabian Nights’. Bruce Adler died in 2008.

The song is over 70 years old. Is it dated? I don’t think so.

For me, this is about as good as it gets. Obviously the trio are very talented, but the choreography is fairly basic… I reckon even I could manage the dance steps. What someone has done is think about how the number could be put over… see previous blog ‘TRADITIONAL OR TRENDY’. They have worked out bits of business, to make it entertaining. Dare I suggest that the performers are enjoying their performance, and loving it… not themselves? Yes, of course I dare! They are working for each other… action and reaction. You can bet your life they have rehearsed it, because it certainly doesn’t have that ‘thrown together look’… does that ring any bells?

To paraphrase Sugar Kane Kowalczyk*, “You couldn’t aspire, to anything higher… “

*The character played by Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some Like It Hot’, my favourite film. She sings, “I Wanna Be Loved By You”… but then you knew that, didn't you? I hope so!