I had a lot of fun at the Lyric, Hammersmith's excellent pantomime
Dick Whittington and his Cat this evening. Good to see a panto which didn't rely on big star names to get feckless punters in. There were a couple of faces you'd recognise and Stephen Fry and Alan Davies on tape playing a pair of bells, but no Pamela Anderson, no one from Emmerdale or the X Factor. Even as a 43 year old it was fun to lose myself in the corny fun and cathartic to shout stuff out at a fat man wearing a dress. Pantomime is an odd tradition, but it's one that I am glad to see still being preserved. The Lyric had put a modern day spin on everything though and it was very enjoyable to see songs like California Girls and New York rewritten so they were about Hammersmith. As this was a press night there were a few famous faces in the crowd - I was in the row behind Colin Firth from off of Mama Mia. I didn't ask him to sing though. It's for the best. On the way out I bumped into my friend Janet Ellis who gave me a kiss. So this week I have been kissed by Janet Ellis and Fatima Whitbread. What would the teenage me make of that? I think he would be a bit confused. And imagine he was having some kind of dream. Maybe I am.
I haven't been to a panto for ages and enjoyed it immensely. Partly because I realised how much some of my work follows in this honourable tradition. Although it might not seem like the most child-friendly show AIOTM (AIOTM) is pure pantomime, the catchphrases, the larger than life characters, the audience interaction. Tiny Andrew Collings is a great panto style character and you can imagine a King Cumpkin dancing with his cumpkin army. I thought I should maybe try and put together an AIOTM panto for next year. It would be amazing. Oh no it wouldn't! Well it might be. Although, didn't Jim Davidson try something similar.
But maybe it would be good to do a good adult pantomime, because I left the theatre feeling massively cheered up and amused. The theatre is rarely this entertaining.
We watched a bit of Airplane before bedtime, which is also in the pantomime tradition in many ways. It is a film I watched so much as a comedy obsessed teenager that no line is a surprise and which I know pretty much off by heart, but somehow it is still funny. Much of this is down to the genius of the sadly late Leslie Nielsen. In Airplane he doesn't mug as much as he does in some of the later parodies he was involved with and the success of what should be a corny reply to "Surely you can't be serious?" is entirely down to his delivery. By not going for the gag at all but just replying as earnestly as his character would do he makes "I am serious... and don't call me Shirley" an endless amusing bit.
Watch it now. I dare you not to laugh. Even though you know exactly what is coming.
In the reprise where he says "Stop calling me Shirley" he is actually leaving the cockpit with his back to the camera. Like he is embarrassed to have to repeat himself. It's perfect in every sense and in the hands of almost any other comic actor would have been awful - can you imagine Robin Williams doing it for example? Or even Ricky Gervais? Another actor would have milked it or been embarrassed by it. If you want to see more of Nielsen at his comedy peak then do check out the TV series Police Squad. It is utterly amazing and will make you cry laughing. One of the greatest TV shows ever, typically cancelled by TV execs after just six episodes. Wikipedia says, "According to the DVD Commentary, then-ABC entertainment president Tony Thomopoulos said "Police Squad! was cancelled because the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it." What Thomopoulos meant was that the viewer had to actually pay close attention to the show in order to get much of the humor, while most other TV shows did not demand as much effort from the viewer. In its annual "Cheers and Jeers" issue, TV Guide magazine called the explanation for the cancellation "the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.""
It was (I think) my 146th day without an alcoholic drink today, though unusually I quite fancied one. I am not sure how long I am going to carry this on. Got through the blip. Can't give up so close to 150 days can I?
