LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

When I have a session surfing the net…, wearing my Bermuda shorts, sleek silicone swim cap, and natty nose clip... of course, I often go off on tangents from tangents… they can’t touch you for it! Well, to cut up a long story sideways… earlier today I came across the website ‘Instructables’ (instructables.com), which describes itself as “specialising in user-created and uploaded do-it-yourself projects,”

It’s got gazillions of good ideas for purposeful pantomime people, including a castle stage set, a recipe for theatrical slosh, costumes, wigs, a genie on a flying carpet, and a skirt that lights up… fantastic for fairies…

Small amateur dramatic societies won’t be able to use hologram effects that the professional are including in their shows. Most likely they won’t be able to use scenic trucks, or fly in flats, and Shetland ponies are not likely to be pulling Cinderella’s coach. However small effects such as the day to night-light skirt could look quite good on your stage, providing of course it is presented with panache. Effects are only a means to an end, and they should not overshadow the acting, singing or dancing.

Light up skirts are available to buy, via eBay, but it’s mush more fun making your own, isn’t it?

The Glow Company (glow.co.uk) in Doncaster has a host of “practical, fun and innovative products that glow, flash, shine or glow in the dark”, including “one-size fits most”, Flashing Police Helmets with an elasticated chin strap, which feature their very own flashing blue light, and a “Mystical Lantern with a twinkling light”.

I have no connection with any of the company’s mentioned, 

''RIGHT... '', SAID FRED*

I watched the TriStar Pictures 1992 production ‘Chaplin’ again, the other night. Early in the film, Sydney Chaplin (played by Paul Rhys), who was a member of Fred Karno’s London Comedians, introduces his younger half-brother, Charlie (played by Robert Downey Jr.), to ‘The Governor’, as Fred Karno (played by John Thaw) was known. Karno says to the fledgling comedian, “You know what comedy is? It’s knowing who you are and where you come from. And… it’s got to be perfection.” Wise words.

Fred Karno was born Frederick John Westcott, in Exeter in 1866, but soon afterwards the family moved to Nottingham, where he grew up.

He began his stage career as an acrobat, and then joined a touring circus where he was required to work with other acts, including the clowns. From them he learned the skills of physical comedy and slapstick, which were to become his trademark. 

From these early beginnings he went on to become one of the greatest impresarios of the music hall age, with troupes touring all over the world. 

He turned a row of houses in Camberwell into his ‘Fun Factory’ from where an army of writers, scenery builders, props makers, etc. operated. He branched out into theatre management and produced pantomimes and reviews as well as his sketches, of which he had over eighty in his repertoire.

The great Stan Laurel was also a member of ‘Fred Karno’s Army’, and he once said, “Fred Karno didn’t teach Charlie and me all we know about comedy, he just taught us most of it. Above all he taught us to be supple and precise.”

Comedy and precision! It sounds like a contradiction of terms, does it not? Aye, there’s the rub!

Budding comedians, take note. If Fred Karno and Stan Laurel say that comedy is about precision, then that is what it’s about. And if you watch Stanley at work you will see that every action and every reaction is very precise. In my book, he’s the best that ever was, or ever will be.

Apparently, Karno also preached that laughs came when the performer didn't know what was going to happen to him but the audience did. Now there’s food for thought… and action.

“Every routine is reduced to its basic components, all the better to 'sell' the gags, both visual and spoken.” Review of Laurel and Hardy’s ‘Way Out West’ – Internet Movie Database

* The title of a song which was a Top Ten hit for Bernard Cribbins in 1962

HAPPY NEW YEAR...
to all or reader!

To spice up the season, here's a novelty number entitled 'GIT UP OFF'N THAT FLOOR HANNAH!' ('A Bitter New Year's Eve'), written by Red Ingle, Joe ‘Country’ Washburne, and Foster Carling.

It is a pastiche of an American folk ballad, ‘Fair Charlotte’ (or ‘Young Charlotte’), which is based on a poem by one Seba Smith, first published in 1843 under the title ‘A Corpse Going To A Ball’, which has its origins in an incident recounted in an 1840 ‘New York Observer’ article.

Ernest Jansen "Red" Ingle (1906 - 1965) was an American violinist, saxophonist, singer, songwriter, arranger, cartoonist and caricaturist.

In his late teens, he was touring with jazz legends Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer.

After he failed an eye test for the Air Force, he joined 'Spike Jones & His City Slickers', where his talent for comedy came to the fore. An example appears in Paramount's 1945 film  'Bring on the Girls' (youtu.be/y02l0ZZht1U), where he spoofs the vaudeville song, 'Chloe'.

In November 1946, following a salary dispute, Ingle  branched out on his own, and the next year, he made 'Tim Tayshun', a spoof recording of the then-popular Perry Como hit, 'Temptation', with Jo Stafford (using the name 'Cinderella G. Stump'). The single went on to sell three million copies, and a new band... 'Red Ingle and the Natural Seven'... came into being. Their hits included 'Moe Zart's Turkey Trot' (based on Mozart's 'Rondo Alla Turca'), and the classic, 'Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women'.

The Mudcat Café  (http://mudcat.org) has more information on 'Get Up Off'n That Floor Hannah' It is a very useful site for information about folk songs, comic songs and parodies.

This version is by a Strine band.

HAMLET

ye Pantomime

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wacky this way comes. Yes, it’s ‘Hamlet ye Pantomime’…the show they said couldn’t be done, shouldn’t be done… and most likely won’t be done! 

Bill the Bard’s biggie has been given a good going-over by this son of York. That it should come to this! Spoofing Shakespeare? O, what men dare do!

Yes, I know I have mentioned certain texts that should be untouchable as it were… a recent film version of ‘Peter Pan’ has been panned… so is this an about turn then? No, it’s about putting the lid on it. One can but live in hope? All men, I hope, live so.

Hamlet is just your basic boy-meets-ghost, with bodkins, fardels, slings and arrows added for good measure, but this version is a silly, slapstick saga of Scandinavian skulduggery… a quirky, perky pastiche of probably the most puzzling play on the planet. It’s very much an ensemble show with something for everybody… even the audience.

Here’s more matter for a May morning… or an evening any time throughout the year… this script could be performed as part of a regular drama season, even by societies who don’t present an annual pantomime. It does you good to let your hair down once in a while… providing you can still see where you’re going of course!

See – www.gwizzpromotions.co.uk – for details. I double dare you!

Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t... and I ain't talkin' Stanislavski!

TRY... TRY... AGAIN

It appears that Rugby Yawnion fans are up in arms about the World Cup theme music, sung by a certain Paloma Faith (Who she? Ed.).

Opinion is hinting that the songstress has drawn a blank, as it were… Una Paloma Blanca? Hotcha… hotcha… hotcha!

I gave it a listen for a few seconds, and it came across as pretentious, tuneless screaming… so what’s new in popular music?

However, Faith has shrugged off the criticism, saying: "I mean I'm quite pleased with it, so that's all that matters really.”

Well… no it doesn’t actually…  as all you amateur Thespians out there know, because you pay attention to what the class acts have to say about performing, don’t you?

We did work – and worked extremely hard at our routines – so that the final result appeared effortless, and the audience appeared merely to be eavesdropping on us having a good time.' Ernie Wise

 If you're a comic you have to be nice. The audience has to like you. Fanny Brice

I'm honest with my audiences. I never fool them… the public has learned that I will be there with every ounce of entertainment I can give. I respect my public. May Irwin

Entertainment is about people, on both sides of the footlights – performers and their audience. Al Read

A joke makes people laugh. An entertainer performs for people. The audience is supreme.

Gene Perrett

Let a fellow try to outsmart his audience and he misses. Stan Laurel

An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark… that is critical genius. Billy Wilder

MODERN-MINDED 

 

From bbc.co.uk/news – 7.4.2015

Jane Horrocks, Jim Broadbent and Fearne Cotton are to provide voices for the new series of Teletubbies.

Absolutely Fabulous star Horrocks will voice the "tubby phone" - a mobile-style gadget aimed at bringing the revamped show into the modern day."

 That's it... start the dumbing down process whilst they're young!

From bbc.co.uk/news – 7.4.2015

Poldark is to return for a second series with Aidan Turner back in the lead role, the BBC has confirmed.

The period drama remake – a ratings hit for the BBC has been re-commissioned for another eight episodes.

BBC One controller Charlotte Moore said it had been "an outstanding start" to the year.

She said: "We aim to maintain that momentum and continue to move with the times and bring audiences a range of distinctive, high quality programmes that feel relevant and reflect the diversity of modern Britain." 

The series of historical novels by Winston Graham, set in the latter part of the 18^th century, and early 19^th century was originally made for TV 40 years ago, with Robin Ellis in the lead role.

No mobile phones in Poldark? No, but then it's just a good old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure, isn't it, like 'The Three Musketeers', 'Treasure Island', 'The Count of Monte Cristo', etc.?

If Dorothy has had a mobile phone she could have simply called Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and told them where she was, couldn't she? No point in yomping the yellow brick road either? All together now... follow the bouncing ball... "We're off to phone the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!"

ON THE BALL

There is a new version of ‘Cinderella’ in the cinemas. It stars Cate Blanchett, and is directed by Kenneth Branagh for Disney Pictures.

I haven’t seen it yet, but some of the reviews include such comments as… 

“Hollywood filmmakers are no slouches these days when it comes to subverting or sending-up fairy-tale conventions. But Kenneth Branagh does something much more daring. He plays things straight.” 

“With hardly a whiff of irony, and no jokey postmodern references,” 

“…eschews the easy option of modernising it with a hip and radical make-over.”

“… a handsome slice of old-fashioned family entertainment.” 

“… in its lack of experiment, this latest Cinderella feels positively experimental.” 

Well whaddya know?