'T AIN'T

FUNNY

McGEE!"*

I came across the following on the blog of someone who describes himself as... "A creative person... comedy - music - writing... but mostly comedy." He is offering advice to aspiring comedians, regarding opening lines, and he gives as good(?) examples the contributions from a couple of what can only be called... cozeners!

The names are anagrams... they know who they are! 

1st Comic: Erma Gonskeet (very high energy rush to the stage)

“YO YO YO! WHAT’S UP PARTY PEOPLE?

If you think 911 was an inside job, lemme hear you make some noise…”
(as the crowd cheers, she catches her breath a bit and lowers her energy)
“and if you don’t, then I have a poorly made Netflix documentary I’d like to show you”

(raises energy again)

“Wake up and smell the loose change mother f**kers…”

After this opening whirlwind, she continues into a string of one-liners extolling how funny she’ll be as if selling her act to the audience…

“I hope you brought an extra colostomy bag, cause you guys are going to lose your s**t”

“I hope you don’t mind looking a little gay, cause you won’t be able to keep a straight face”

The second comic on the lineup is Conan Tishvane.

He starts off a little more subdued, but still with a good energy. He speaks directly to the crowd, acknowledging them with a “Give yourselves a round of applause” and then he makes a quick reference in the moment to the incredible shrinking mic stand…(somehow the mic stand got loosened and slid down when he moved it out-of-the-way) after getting these niceties our of the way, he hits his first joke:

“All the way from New York, I am a military veteran. I am a military veteran… (this will always get a smattering of applause, as it should… and as they clap he pulls out his dog tags…) “Yeah, these are real… yeah, I didn’t get them at Hot Topic or wherever the f**k people are getting these…. I saw a guy the other day wearing them and I said ‘Hey bro, I was in the military, what branch were you in?’… and he kinda mumbled something ‘Navy’… and I said, “Oh shit, you were in the Navy… and said ‘No.. Old Navy, I got it at Old Navy on Friday…’

Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company, where… “You can find all of your wardrobe "must-have's" at prices you can’t believe. Everything from your favorite T-shirts and jeans to your seasonal fashion faves. 

If this is comedy, I am King Caractacus! It is even less funny than ‘Fleabag’… and I didn’t think that was possible!

Unbelievably, there are people who will actually defend this dross… Here’s a quote from someone described as a… “writer, actor and stand-up comedian”.

"Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don’t laugh, that’s funny."

Does this mean that if your unfunny comedian goes into hospital for an operation, and he or she dies on the operating table, that’s successful? Hmmn?

We can all do that… “Gi’s a job! Where's me scalpel?"

It's balderdash, piffle and poppycock… now they were funny!

*A catch-phrase from the American radio show, 'Fibber McGee and Molly', which aired for more than 1100 episodes from 1935 to 1959. Set in the fictional Midwestern city of Wistful Vista, the sitcom was a reflection of the American scene, and showcased some top-notch comic and musical talent. The show’s creators and stars were a married couple, Jim and Marian Jordan.

MAKING A
SONG AND
DANCE OF   
IT!

I have been including recommendations for music number in my pantomime scripts for quite some time, but now, no longer. Often the search was quite laborious, and there’s no guarantee that groups using my scripts will follow the recommendations anyway.

From an early age, I was spoon-fed jazz. My father was a great fan, and he had a considerable collection of 78 rpm records. As my teens started, so did the rock ‘n’ roll era, with 45 rpm discs. In October 1962, we heard… “Love, love me do… “Beatlemania"! As my late brother used to say… “We had the best… and now they’ve got the rest”.

What dire dross is being doled out today. How can they yell like that when nobody’s hitting them with a cricket bat?

So… I am writing new lyrics for what one could call ‘traditional’ songs, and also for popular tunes in the ‘public domain’, which means they must meet at least one of the following criteria:

·                    All rights have expired.

·                    The authors have explicitly put the work into the public domain.

·                    There never were copyrights.

In general terms, in the U.K., a song is in the public domain if the publication date is before 1925, if the song has no composer, or if it is a ‘folk’ song. Some music publishers have available pre 1925 songs which have been ‘arranged’ by someone since then, and therefore are copyright. It’s a bit of a minefield, so tread carefully.

If a piece of music does not fall within public domain and is under copyright, then it is unlawful to reproduce, perform, distribute, or create a new version of that music without a proper license under many countries jurisdictions.

Useful information is available on the following websites, where hundreds of songs are listed… enough to keep you going for quite some time!

www.pdinfo.com

rockytopconcert.weebly.co/public domain songs.html

Also, on – monologues.co.uk – you will find hundreds of song lyrics which have been put together, over a 12 year period, by a small group of and music hall enthusiasts. Most of the songs would have been popular between the years 1860 – 1920, and each one has the date of publication listed.

There is also a collection of 100 printable PDF music sheets.

One bee that gets in my bonnet is… if I do a Google search for a lyric, the stateside search engine asks… “Did you mean lyrics for… “No I didn’t, Yank!

I'M ON A ROLL!

Quite often, in the wee small hours I scan the television channels to try and find something ‘interesting’ to watch. 

Most early mornings that’s about as easy as underwater yodelling! What a bedazzlement of blandness, with the likes of ‘Gogglebox’, and even ‘Celebrity Gogglebox’, featuring prominently.

I have never watched this show, but then I have never watched wallpaper dry. However, we have a saying here in the county of broad acres… where there’s brainwaves, there’s brass. So, I got the old grey matter into gear, and I came up with an idea for a brand new television programme. 

‘Thunderbox’! It’s a terrific title, isn’t it?

Yes! It will feature members of the general public droning on, whilst doin’... the what comes naturally. That's… copious codswallow from the khazi!

Remember, you read it here first… that will help me if there is a dispute over copyright!

HAPPY GNU YEAR
to all our reader!
2020

And remember... you only go around once in life. Unless, of course, you're one of those people who likes to hang from their ceiling fan!

A MAD WORLD 

MY MASTERS*                                                                

Here’s some splutter I came across on t’Interweb the other day.

                                                                          

"Hollywood and the entertainment industry are paying more and more attention to issues of diversity and gender equality in films and television shows and now Walt Disney Studios has a new tool to help. Announced at the New Zealand Power of Inclusion Summit earlier this week, Disney is partnering with Geena Davis and her Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to deploy a new tool that functions as a "spellcheck" for gender bias in film and television scripts.

According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, the new "GD-IQ: Spellcheck for Bias" tool is an AI technology-using digital tool that is able to analyze a script's text and evaluate the number of male and female characters and if the breakdown is representative of the actual population. The tool, which was developed at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, can also be used to evaluate how many characters are LGBTQ+, are people of colour, have disabilities as well as other groups frequently underrepresented in media. Additionally, the tool can check the number of lines spoken by group as well as additional characteristics. According to Davis, Disney is the pilot partner for the tool."

I checked that it wasn’t All Fools’ Day... but it wasn’t. Then I pinched myself to make sure it wasn’t a bad dream… nope! Well they do say truth is stranger than fiction.

But then I twigged it. This must be down (get it) to the impact that this megastar met with after driving off that cliff in the film ‘Thelma and Louise’. The mega G force landing couldn’t have done much good for the old grey matter. And I thought they used stunt drivers… but there you go… and stop… suddenly!

So, if the judgemental Gina has her way, I reckon that the entire Shakespeare canon won’t make the grade, along with plays by the likes of George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, Neil Simon and Molière, to mention only a few. Varied as the characters are in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ I suppose the Association for the Advancement of Aardvarks would have an issue with an accurate dramatisation, since there is nary an “African ant bear” in Lewis Carroll’s classic. The closest thing is the Duchess’s baby that turns into a pig!

Joking aside, this is seriously sinister…. shades of ‘1984’… and they are all greyish. Of course the Thinkpol would be cock-a-hoop… or should that now be, “cock and hen-a-hoop”! Gosh, we really are going to have mind our Ps and Qs… which unfortunately excludes twenty-four other letters of the alphabet! Wow… this is a minefield… or should it be “a yourfield, or “an ourfield”? Stop the world I want to get out!

 

In the month of March this year, in London, there was a production of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’ featuring an all-female cast of... “women of colour”. We are talking historical figures here… living beings. Yes, the Bard was occasionally a little cavalier with history, but not to that extent.

“During the Stalin era, Russian history was rewritten to conform to the political demands of an increasingly controlling regime.” ‘Rewriting Russian History: Stalin Era Representations’ -

Ludmilla A. Trigos

“‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’” 1984 - George Orwell

*’A Mad World, My Masters’ is a Jacobean stage play written by Thomas Middleton, a comedy first performed around 1605 and first published in 1608. It would surely be a victim of the blue stocking’s blue pencil!

               

            

ALL RIGHT
ON THE 
KNIGHT!

So shout, hip-hip-hooray,
He's a jolly good fellow…
21 today!*

Yes… my twenty-first script has just had a bottle of bubble bath broken over its bows, before sliding down the slipway… sideways.

The title is "Flimflamalot – a prank in King Arthur’s court"

All right...  it’s from the same stable as the Python’s ‘Spamalot’, which was a spin-off of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", but then the story goes all the way back to 1135 (that’s the year, not twenty-five minutes to midnight) when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote “Historia regum Britanniae”, (“History of the Kings of Britain”) a fictional work, which includes an account of King Arthur’s conquests.

Fast forward to 1889, when the American humourist and writer, Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) wrote “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court “, which was filmed in 1931 as “A Connecticut Yankee”, starring Will Rogers. In 1949, Bing Crosby played the time-traveller in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, which was a musical film adaptation of the novel.

“The Sword in the Stone” was a 1963 Disney animated film about Arthur's childhood, loosely adapted from T.H. White's take on the legend.

The "Carry On" team’s 1975 TV series, “Carry On Laughing” included two courtly contributions… “"Under the Round Table", and "Short Knight, Long Daze".

The French series "Kaamelott" (2005–2009) featured a humorous look at the legend.

And so it goes on...

Nothing new there then, well. apart from my script, which incidentally, could be

conveniently performed at any time of the year, as part of a regular season.

Hey… that’s cool!

Well… it was the age of shivery!

* The song, “I’m Twenty-One Today” was made popular by the English music hall comedian and singer, Jack Pleasants (1875–1924) Born in Bradford, he was a regular in pantomimes. His repertoire also included, “Come in and Cut Yourself a Piece of Cake”, “I Want to be Pally with Everyone”, “It's My Bath Night Tonight”, “Where Do Flies Go in the Winter Time?” and the self-effacing, “I’m Shy, Mary Ellen, I’m Shy”.

THINGS TO DON’T 

                                             

I came across the following whilst searching through the Internet Archive (Internet Archive: Digital Library  (archive.org)

                    

It’s from: HUMOROUS HOMESPUN DIALOGUES by Willis N. Bugbee (great name!) Published by T. S. DENNISON & COMPANY, CHICAGO (hence the American spelling), in 1913, and still relevant, I reckon! 

A DOZEN DON’TS 
REGARDING THE PRESENTATION OF DIALOGUES

Don’t select a dialogue or play without first considering whether your would-be performers have the ability to present it in a creditable manner.

Don’t assign important parts to those who cannot or will not attend all rehearsals, or to those who are extremely timid on the stage.

Don’t give an old man part to one who can do straight work better. In other words assign the parts to fit the players.

Don’t attempt to direct or coach a dialogue until you have studied it carefully and understand yourself, just how it should be presented – what expressions and gestures are needed to make it most effective.

Don’t stop rehearsing until every line is thoroughly memorized and every detail has been mastered. The first meeting should be for a reading of the play, the last one should be a full dress rehearsal.

Don’t think that the memorizing and reciting of the words alone will make your dialogue a success. There are many expressions, gestures, movements, etc. that are not given in the text, but are almost as essential as the words themselves.

Don’t allow unnecessary interruptions during rehearsals. Insist that all laughing, talking, joking, etc. be postponed until the rehearsal is over.

Don’t allow mumbling. Require that each and every one speak loud enough to be heard distinctly in all parts of the building.

Don’t be discouraged if the first few rehearsals do not seem to bring the results you expect. It takes considerable time and a great deal of patience before you may hope to attain the degree of perfection you desire.

Don’t fail to have all accessories (costumes, properties etc.) on hand at just the proper time and proper place. A failure to do so may spoil the whole performance.

Don’t depend too much on the prompter. Although he/she is quite necessary to a well conducted entertainment, yet the least he has to do apparently, the more successful the performance.

Don’t trust to luck unless hard work goes with it. If you have assigned the parts wisely, drilled thoroughly, and attended to all the little details of the play, your success is reasonably assured.