UN FUNNY?

(Do you gerrit?)

With the new year fast approaching, I know I should be optimistic, but it's decidedly difficult when you're aware of the way of the world.

Some time ago, whilst attending an outdoor professional sports event, where some chubby cheerleaders were struggling to strut their stuff to the accompaniment of a discordant din spewing from a sound system, I made the comment, “Modern music has hit a brick wall!” Nobody could hear what I was saying, of course! Later, whilst recounting the incident to my wife and explaining that the lasses were struggling to match their movements to the raucous racket that had neither tune nor time, I added… “Modern comedy as well!”

Reading some reviews of that ill-famed flick, ‘The Interview’, which has the unknown to me, James Franco, and the likewise, Seth Rogen, in the leading roles, I came across the following…

“But Mr. Franco mugs shamelessly to make sure we understand that he’s being funny, which he’s not, and the script as a whole turns a satirical—or at least farcical—premise into sour buffoonery. In the real world, a debate has been raging over what does and doesn’t constitute torture. In the movie world, there’s no debate; watching “The Interview” is torture from almost start to finish.

So how did such a turkey ever escape the studio lot? A significant part of the answer lies in the dumbing-down of the audience that began decades ago, when studios discovered that kids would turn out to see almost any piece of junk on any weekend provided the marketing departments did their jobs. Movies weren’t the only coarseners of pop culture, but they led the way, with the eager assent of the paying public. The dumbing-downers were so successful for so many years—and became so beholden to a small coterie of popular stars—that they dumbed themselves down to a level of trivialization where reality and reckless fantasy were no longer readily distinguishable. As Hollywood spectaculars go, “The Interview” was long in the making.”

Oh, that’s so true… unfortunately.

According to 'The Guardian' and many other news sources, the aforementioned James Franco was paid $6.5 million for his stint in the cinematic offering.

"We are living in the machine age. For the first time in history the comedian has been compelled to supply himself with jokes and comedy material to compete with the machine. Whether he knows it or not, the comedian is on a treadmill to oblivion." Fred Allen (1894-1956), American comedian.

HACKROBATICS

According to the BBC website 17.12.2014, two decades after its London premiere, the musical comedy, ‘City of Angels’, has returned to the stage at London's Donmar Warehouse.

The film noir-inspired musical was created by Cy Coleman, Larry Gelbart and lyricist David Zippel. Yes, that’s the same Larry Gelbart who, when receiving a Tony Award, grasped the opportunity to speak the writer's eternal lament: “Why does everyone else think they can do what I do, but only after I've done it?”‘

Director Josie Rourke told the BBC it took on modern issues about self-identity and integrity.

"In the universe of the Sony hack, we are left questioning how deeply we believe in what we do and how honest we are with ourselves," she said.

Hopefully, having read the postings on this blog, my regular reader will know that I do believe deeply in what I do, and I am very honest with myself. Of course, I can’t speak for other people, and I wouldn’t presume to, but I do offer advice in this direction to ego-trippers, and I repeat, at the risk of becoming boring (CUE SHOUTS OF “NAY, NAY, AND THRICE NAY!”) “However well you do a show you can always do it better!” I adopted that maxim a long time ago when I was active in the amateur theatre. I can’t remember reading it anywhere, neither anyone communicating it to me, it just seemed so obvious. It’s a truism, isn’t it?

With regards to the Sony hack (sounds like a Country and Western singer!), apparently, the vast trove of documents stolen included an “early version” of the script for the next James Bond film, ‘Spectre. Well, I refuse to send out copies of my scripts as e-mail attachments, explaining to enquirers that the part of Yorkshire where I was born, bred and still live, is serious Luddite country, and we do not trust modern technology, consequently, I have no desire to have my work floating around in cyberspace… if that is what it’s called. Still if hackers can get to Sony, the White House, the United States military and NASA computers, what chance has yours truly got of his scripts not being snaffled?

Personally, I would have difficulty hacking into a matchbox with a felling axe!

COMEDY KEYSTONES

In his 1980 tribute to the animation director “Tex” Avery, fellow director, “Chuck Jones” shared six lessons that he learned about comedy from working with Avery in the 1930s.

Amongst them were…

“You must love what you caricature. You must not mock it… unless it is ridiculously self-important… “

“If you are in that trade of helping others to laugh and to survive by laughter, then you are privileged indeed.”

“Remember always that character is all that matters in the making of great comedians, in animation, and in live-action.”

“Keep always in your mind, your heart and your hand that timing is the essence, the spine, and the electrical magic of humour.”

In a career spanning over 60 years, Charles Martin Jones (1912-2002) made more than 300 animated films, winning three Oscars as director, and in 1996 an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement. He helped bring to life many of Warner Bros. most famous characters: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig. The list of characters he created himself includes Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, and Pepe le Pew.

Animator, cartoonist, voice actor, and director, Frederick Bean Avery, (1908-1980), was a descendant of Daniel Boone and the infamous Judge Roy Bean. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Avery is widely considered the original cartoon gag-man, famous for wild takes, breaking the fourth wall and medium conventions, and stretching every joke to its comedic limit.

I have often said that we can learn from the learned… unless of course we think we know it all!

THE FOOD OF LOVE...

No, this is not about passion fruit or dates, it’s about music, which of course, has charms to soothe a savage breast, soften rocks, bend a knotted oak, and leap tall buildings in a single bound!

My regular reader will remember that towards the end of last year I reported the windup of Wikifonia, the lead sheet database, from which skillions of sheet music could be downloaded without login or subscription. So, there it was… gone like a long dog!

Since then, I have come across some ‘fake books’ that are available on the supersnicket,.and there is a chance that you might be able to find something to include in you show

Wikipedia defines a fake book as… “…a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords, and lyrics* - the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or "fake it."

The sites are…

archive.org/details/fakebooks

archive.org/details/fakebook_the-firehouse-jazz-band-fake-book

meetup.com/NYCUkuleleJam/messages/boards/thread/5186315

valdez.dumarsengraving.com/557JazzStandards.PDF

jososoft.dk/yamaha/sheets.htm

realbooksite.com

Happy searching!

Only today, I happened upon the following site, which is in French, mes amis...

partitionsdechansons.com/

If you don’t parlez français, a quick translation will inform you that… “This website hosts only free songs free songs or filed with the consent of the author (?). Apart from these partitions, this site is a huge directory of free sheet music. It scans, it looks, it selects and offers all the best of the web PDF documents as links.”

Websites listed are offered not as recommendations, but purely for information. I have no connection with any of them, and I advise that anyone looking to download sheet music reads the conditions that pertain, before they press the return key.

*I still use the correct term, i.e. ‘lyric’, which The Free Dictionary defines as “The words of a song.”, but adds, “Often used in the plural.” Now, that’s dumb, because the word ‘words’ is already plural!

A RIGHT PASTING!

Today I discovered a NODA review of a production of one of my scripts, which refers to a “schoolroom scene”. This is news to me, since I didn’t write it. It didn’t get there by accident. Person or persons unknown must have made it up, and sneaked it into the script.

As I have mentioned before, on the reverse of the title page of all my scripts are ‘IMPORTANT NOTES’ with the instruction, ‘PLEASE READ CAREFULLY’. Note number ‘5’ clearly states…

“No alteration to the title or script should be made without the author’s consent. All approved alterations of or suggestions for the script become the authors’ property.”

I received no communication from anyone requesting consent for the inclusion of a schoolroom scene. It would appear that not one person in the company, or on the committee, had the gumption to say, “Hang on a minute… we’ll have to check that out with G.Wizz Promotions”. It’s naughty, and it’s haughty!

Would these amateur societies change Chekov, alter Alan Ayckbourn, or revise Rodgers and Hammerstein? I think not!

I’m as cross as two sticks, but I have a solution, dear reader.

In my blog, ‘WRITES AND WRONGS’ 29.11.2011, I suggested that one way of dealing with these toplofty transgressors would be to “go round and re-arrange their furniture.”

However, I have decided that’s too good for ‘em. So… I am going to get together a group of gagsters, and when the smart alec/alice is somewhere else, we’ll descend on their domicile and redo the décor. Using gallons of gunge, we’ll paper the place in the style of a slosh scene from panto… with no splash spared!

Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges! 

HIT OR MISS?

Here’s a by-the-way…

I am quite keen on baseball, and currently the 2014 World Series is under way, featuring Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants. The first team to win four games of seven clinches the title.

Prior to the start of Game 5 of 2014 World Series on Sunday 26 October, some tattooed troglodyte sang "The Star-Spangled Banner", which is of course, the national anthem of the United States. Don’t ask me why they choose these chumps, but surprise, surprise…the gawk got the words wrong.

This crooner was completely unknown to me, but apparently he is a member of what is described as… an “alternative metal band”. What’s alternative to metal? Plastic? Balsa wood? Blancmange?

When Billy Connolly was asked, “Which words or phrases do you most overuse?” he replied, “Times may change but standards must remain. I use it at least once a day. I found it on an After Eight commercial and I use it when someone’s speaking too loud or throwing their weight about.”

Bully for you, Billy!

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS*

In his book, ‘Tommy Cooper All-In-One Joke Book’ (Preface, 2013) John Fisher claims that Sigmund Freud “…famously states that jokes needed to convey their message not just in a few words, but in too few words.” Mr. Fisher’s has the advantage of me there, because I haven’t read ‘Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten’, (‘The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious’), but Ken Dodd may have, because apparently he once said, something along the lines of… “The trouble with Freud is that he never had to play the old Glasgow Empire on a Saturday night after Rangers and Celtic had both lost.”

That’s true, Doddy, but then long before “Golden Siggie” appeared on the scene, Bill Shakespeare informs us through the character of Polonius in ‘Hamlet’, that “…brevity is the soul of wit…”

My regular reader should by now, be fully aware of my admiration for the Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist and journalist, Billy Wilder, director and co-author (with I.A.L. Diamond) of the screenplay for my favourite flick, ‘Some Like It Hot’, made in 1959. Forty-one years later, the American Film Institute listed it as the greatest American comedy film of all time. I suspect that there has been nothing since that came close to bettering it.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, who just happen to witness the St. Valentine's Day massacre. To get out of town and escape from the gangster responsible, they disguise themselves as women, and join an all-female band that’s bound for Florida. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by the millionaire, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown).

I remember, quite a few overcoats ago, watching a BBC2 documentary about ‘The Viennese Pixie’, where he dissected the scene where Jerry, disguised as Daphne, has been nightclubbing with Osgood, so that Joe can ‘borrow’ Osgood’s yacht for an evening alone with Sugar. It starts…

INT. ROOM 413 - DAWN

Jerry, still in his evening gown, is stretched out on his bed, gaily singing LA CUMPARSITA and accompanying himself with a pair of maracas. Joe appears over the railing of the balcony, steps through the window into the room.

Wilder gave a riveting explanation of how he and his co-writer pared the dialogue down to the very minimum, but then the whole script is as tight as Dick’s hatband, and the resulting movie has been described as … “…a film of inspiration and meticulous craft."

I’m not in Mr Wilder’s league… but then, who is? However, in my own little way, I do try to craft my scripts and I am a serial ‘tweaker’. Yes, I like alliteration, and occasionally may overdo it, but I reckon that it can help establish a character, and give some rhythm to the dialogue. In the right place, verbosity can be funny

Of course, as I mentioned in my blog, ‘NO LAUGHING MATTER’, (12 March 2013), an actor needs to understand a joke before he or she can deliver it properly. Then there's the business of sticking to the script...

I once guested as the director of an amateur production of Noel Coward’s ‘Hay Fever’. The leading roles of Judith and David Bliss were being played by ageing Thespians with bulky scrapbooks. Well into rehearsals, when it was time for “scripts down”, I realised that they had both learnt only an approximation of the lines, and there was no way they were going to ‘unlearn them’. What with “The Master’s” dialogue being particularly precise and mannered, from then on, it was basically damage limitation.

In my varied acting career, both as an amateur and a professional, I have always tried to be word perfect. I reckon I owe it to the writer.

Have a look at the following (edited) tips about acting comedy which I came across by chance on www.backstage.com. By gummy, it’s always pleasing to find current opinions which match those one has held since Moby Dick was a tiddler! Please pay particular attention to note number 4!

The Top 10 Tips for Becoming a Successful Comedy Actor

1. Find your funny. In what way are you funny? What's funny about you? Being aware of what makes up your personal "funny" - finding the comedy in yourself and your everyday life - is the first step to becoming a successful comedy actor. 

2. Identify your comedy character. Knowing your comedic qualities will help you identify your comedy character.

3. Explore your comedy. To be a successful comedy actor, you have to study the art form…

4. Stick to the script. Comedy is all about rhythm, timing, and pace, and it's your job as a comedic actor to identify those things in each and every piece of scripted comedy you perform. Comedy, when done right, is like a good song. Just as a musician plays the melody as composed, a comedic actor must stick to the script. That means following the words exactly as written. Don't add or drop words or attach handles to the beginnings of sentences, like "Look," "I mean," "Well," and "So." And don't change the punctuation! Always remember that a period is not just the end of a sentence; it's the end of a thought. Blowing past it or changing it to a question mark will not only change the intention of the line but also the "music" in the dialogue.

5. Learn to break down comedy scripts. Comedy is made up of two things: desperation and the unpredictable. These themes are found in story lines, jokes, and characters. 

6. Perfect your funny. As you develop your character and learn your comedic technique, you'll also start to examine more-subtle but important tools for your comedy, especially in the script itself.

7. Stay committed. You and your character need to believe in everything you're doing and commit to it wholeheartedly.

8. Be still. One of the biggest things that can kill a comedic scene is unscripted movement…

9. Watch the comedy masters. There are so many legends old and new in this business, and watching them work is vital to building your comedy career.

10. Have fun.  When performing comedy, you have to enjoy what you're doing. You need to do your homework, find your character, perfect your technique, commit to the text, then… have fun.

Of course you could just ignore all this advice and do your own thing, as many ego-trippers do. That way you end up being unfunny.... or even anti-funny!

* Also a quote from 'Hamlet'.