Finally delurking

[terrykb]

Last Wednesday I saw At the Drop of a Hippopotamus at the Bridewell Theatre, for an evening of Flanders and Swann songs performed by Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh-Atkins.

Of my favourites, Ill Wind (based on Mozart's 4th Horn Concerto) was there, as was Madeira M'Dear (often quoted as an impressive example of zeugma, discussed by officialgaiman in his journal entry of 7 January 2004, and unzeugmatic when explaining his username). Sadly we didn't get their First and Second Law (of Thermodynamics).

FitzHigham's and Atkins's introductions and chat between the songs curiously blurred whether they were playing the parts of Flanders and Swann (delivering a script with references to living in Kensington and Battersea, and where our singer has a young and innocent relation who believes that Madeira M'Dear is about cake) or were 21st-century performers of these songs (with topical references to Ken Livingstone and Tony Blair). But given the topical nature of the original scripts, I'm not sure what the "right" thing to do would be. The approach of running through relevant news headlines of the time, as seen before repeats of Have I Got News For You? or Drop the Dead Donkey, might not work quite so effectively for events of the 1950s and 1960s.

(I faintly recall former Conservative MP Teresa Gorman and others appearing on television singing a variation on the Song of Patriotic Prejudice replacing the refrain "The English... are best" with "The British... are best", which could seem to miss much of the point of the original song... And in tracking down the lyrics for that song, I did find a few links to the IT elitists' The Hackers Are Best, which may deserve a mention, although the song is probably not quite so widely parodied as Gilbert and Sullivan's I am the very model of a modern Major-General, meta-satirised in I am the very model of a boring Usenet parody).

Taking advantage of the Evening Standard's recent generous offer, I also saw the 3D Haunted Castle at the London IMAX Cinema. It was the first time I had been to a three-dimensional film, and the technology was impressive. The reaction of the audience was different from that in the late 19th century: instead of shock at seeing the Lumière brothers' film of a train heading towards them (discussed, and partly debunked, in Stephen Bottomore's The Panicking Audience?: early cinema and the 'train effect'), some were reaching out and trying to grab the images which appeared to hover directly before their faces. (Unfortunately the plot was truly flimsy, and seemed to be simply a pretext for showing off the 3D capabilities of the IMAX cinema, but for 45 minutes being shown off at could be a perfectly enjoyable experience.)

[Edit at 17:40 GMT: URL of The Panicking Audience... now corrected in the last paragraph.]

[Addendum on 9 January 2005: the original link now appears broken, but Google does give a few other sources for I am the very model of a boring Usenet parody.]

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I am the very model of a boring Usenet parody

First post.

[helenbr.livejournal.com]

I haven't really got a relevant comment, I'm afraid, but as I frequently harass you for not ever having posted, it seemed rude to let it go unnoticed.

I like the style too. Having comment pages which match ones LJ is probably what will make me finish my S2 style one of these days.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the writeup of the Flanders and Swann revival. In 2002 I saw a comparable performance, The Gasman Cometh by the Northern Theatre Company. Their only revision was the introduction of a third performer as the artisan of the title song, the rake of 'Madeira M'Dear' and so on. It is for this reason alone that I didn't go to the Bridewell, not because I was piqued at their aggressive fundraising.

Thank you for finding The Panicking Audience? I'd long assumed that tales of train terror were an example of one century constructing itself as more sophisticated than the last, but apparently this assumption of superiority was contemporaneous.