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Post by tonyloco on Jan 10, 2020 11:47:14 GMT
I’m not sure who wrote this parody — it has apparently been attributed to both Lorenz Hart and Buddy De Sylva. I’ll be loving you Always Both in very big and Small ways. With a love as grand As Paul Whiteman’s band And ‘twill weigh as much as Paul weighs, Always. In saloons and drab Hallways You are what I’ll grab Always. See how I dispense Rhymes that are immense, But do they make sense? Not always. Many thanks, harrietcraig, for that brilliant parody of 'Always', which is new to me. I love it!
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 10, 2020 11:43:12 GMT
Yes, tmesis, Noel Coward's rewriting of Cole Porter's 'Let's Do It' is one of the very best of such comic lyrics, and is greatly enhanced by Coward's pronunciation of some of the words in his iconic 1955 recorded live performance.
I never understood why the last line (about Liberace) got such a big laugh, and one of my Australian writer friends was always wondering whether Coward got a clearance from all those celebrities (or their estates) to include their names in the song or whether he just took a chance that none of them would object or try to sue him? He was of course a pal of Cole Porter and they shared at least one boyfriend so one assumes Coward got a clearance from Porter or his publisher for the parody version of 'Let's Do It'.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 9, 2020 11:54:13 GMT
Actually, if anybody cares, I had misremembered the order of the stanzas in the parody of 'Makin' Whoopee'. I think the whole parody goes as follows, although it ends up rather weakly and I am not absolutely certain about all the words in the later part.
The Sultan rings his little bell, Calls for his wife whose name is Nell. Puts down his bourbon Takes off his turban, Starts makin' whoopee.
Next night he wants a change of scene. Calls for his wife whose name's Irene. She's only twenty But she knows plenty 'Bout makin' whoopee.
Forty wives felt neglected, They thought it wasn't fair. But that's all been corrected, And now they all get their share.
'Cos every night the Sultan's son, Who also likes a bit of fun, Runs through the harem And tries to scare 'em Makin' whoopee.
Not up to Larry Hart's standard of dirt although I particularly like the picture of the bourbon and the turban at the beginning. It was possibly written by the lyricist of the original song, Gus Kahn.
Does anybody else have parodies of classic songs to offer or is it just me and the Monkey who collect such things?
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 8, 2020 10:55:23 GMT
'You Made me Love You' – dates from 1913. "You made me love you, you woke me up to do it, you woke me up to do it" may date a little later, perhaps? Yes, parodies of popular songs were also commonplace, some quite filthy. One of the clean ones was 'My Melancholy Baby': Come to me my alcoholic baby, Too much gin has made you blue, All your fears are foolish fancies, maybe. You know dear that grog's no good for you, etc and another cleanish one went: The Sultan rings his little bell Calls for his wife whose name is Nell She's only twenty but she knows plenty 'Bout makin' whoopee, etc The dirty ones I will leave to the Monkey to post, since that seems to be one of his special fields of knowledge....along with bananas and the rules of Mornington Crescent.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 7, 2020 20:34:50 GMT
And happily watching that wonderful movie Some Like it Hot on TV a few days ago I particularly enjoyed the songs 'Running Wild' (1923), 'Down Among the Sheltering Palms' (1915), 'I'm Through With Love' (1932), 'By the Beautiful Sea' (1914), 'I Wanna Be Loved By You' (1928) and of course that quintessential tango 'La Cumparsita' (1916) – Strictly Come Dancing take note of the correct rhythm for the tango!
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 7, 2020 20:16:00 GMT
It Had to Be You (1924) — music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn Sweet Georgia Brown (1925) — music by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, lyrics by Kenneth Casey Bye Bye Blackbird (1926) — music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Mort Dixon My Blue Heaven (1927) — music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by George A. Whiting I invariably included all of those four wonderful songs on the many occasions I played for sing-along entertainment in the bar of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, before the show, during the interval and afterwards. When the bell rang announcing the end of the interval, I always launched into '(The bells are ringing) For Me and My Girl', which I am surprised to see was written in 1917, although, come to think of it, one of the most endurable songs of that kind – 'You Made me Love You' – dates from 1913.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 3, 2020 12:57:40 GMT
I should just remind people that as well as his stage and TV work, Danny La Rue also had a very successful career as a cabaret entertainer in London, starring first at Churchill's Club for several years and then later at his own club in Hanover Square for nine years.
He was a uniquely charismatic performer who reached the very top of his profession and I have vivid memories of seeing him live on stage several times.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2019 17:31:59 GMT
Look out, here comes a tonyloco anecdote:
Those regulations relating to British theatres used to be part of the Lord Chamberlain's theatre licensing requirements and they had to be printed in all theatre programmes. That brilliant comedy duo Flanders and Swann set them to music and first performed them as part of their stage revue Fresh Airs. I believe the song was recorded, so it is probably available on Spotify. It began:
"The public may leave at the end of each performance by all the exit doors..."
I believe these requirements are now the responsibility of the local licensing authority where each theatre is located.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 24, 2019 12:06:02 GMT
May I rather belatedly recommend a brilliant book called The Ripples Before the New Wave, by Robyn Dalton and Laura Ginters, published in 2018 by Currency Press in Australia. It tells the story of theatre and drama at Sydney University between 1957 and 1963 and draws on an extensive series of interviews the authors conducted with surviving members of that era, as well as published sources including newspapers, memoires and biographies.
Among the people involved are Australians Clive James, Leo Schofield, John Bell, Germaine Greer, Ken Horler, Bruce Beresford, Robert Hughes, Philip Hedley, Madeleine St John and Richard Wherrett. Britishers Pamela and Bill Trethowan also figure prominently in the story, and yours truly plays a minor part.
It was a time of amazing activity when the amateur dramatic societies at Sydney University in putting on plays by Brecht, Beckett, Anouilh, Ionesco, etc, were doing much more significant work than the professional theatre companies in Sydney and elsewhere in Australia, and this 'golden age' is lovingly documented in meticulous detail by the two authors.
Even for those who were not around at the time, the book still makes a fascinating read.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 14, 2019 16:22:17 GMT
I agree with you tmesis . Greatest ballet score, yes. Greatest piece of music, no. I personally would go for Rosenkavalier as the greatest piece of music, although I wouldn't necessarily expect anyone else to agree with me. Yes, Rosenkavalier has some glorious music but it is a tad long.... It is Elektra that does it for me, apart from a ghastly performance that I saw in Salzburg conducted by Karajan. His lighting was so dim that I have no idea whether or not Astrid Varnay was actually on stage, especially as his orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, was so loud you couldn't hear the singers either! But I do have huge admiration for Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and, as I have mentioned before on this board, the greatest night I ever spent in the theatre was back in February 1965 for the first night of the Macmillan ballet with Fonteyn and Nureyev at Covent Garden. Every aspect of that night was overwhelming, with the music contributing substantially to the emotional impact of what was happening on stage. The important thing, however, is that we must all count ourselves lucky that we can get so much enjoyment out of the classical music of the 20th century whether it be by Stravinsky or Prokofiev or Ravel or Strauss or Elgar or Shostakovich....
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 1, 2019 10:47:37 GMT
Please can I have another go with a truly memorable moment that I had temporarily forgotten due to my advanced age...!
This would certainly be one of my very earliest theatrical memories and it was with Evie Hayes as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun in Sydney in 1947/8 at the end of Act one, when Chief Sitting Bull says to Annie after she has temporarily lost Frank Butler: "You best shot in the whole world!" and Annie replies in song: "But you can't get a man with a gun!" as the curtain falls. That never failed to raise a tear.
This was when an impressionable eleven-year-old boy realised that the two greatest words in the English language were 'Musical Comedy' (42nd Street) and Irving Berlin was right when he wrote 'There's No Business Like Show Business' (Annie Get Your Gun)
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 30, 2019 16:46:06 GMT
Please can I have another go with a truly memorable moment that I had temporarily forgotten due to my advanced age...!
This would certainly be one of my very earliest theatrical memories and it was with Evie Hayes as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun in Sydney in 1947/8 at the end of Act one, when Chief Sitting Bull says to Annie after she has temporarily lost Frank Butler: "You best shot in the whole world!" and Annie replies in song: "But you can't get a man with a gun!" as the curtain falls. That never failed to raise a tear.
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 30, 2019 16:30:08 GMT
I will certainly never forget the flying of characters out over the auditorium in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Witches of Eastwick and Mary Poppins – theatrical magic at its best!
And I have to mention an entire unforgettable production that had me totally enthralled from beginning to end, which was Mother Goose with Clive Rowe at the Hackney Empire a few years ago, as did 42nd Street from the second the orchestra started to the last tap on stage, but I know I am not alone in that.
I could also mention a few sensational moments in opera and ballet but I don't think they are what this thread is meant to be about, but let me just say Margot Fonteyn, Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Boris Christoff, Jon Vickers, Jussi Björling, Hans Hotter and Birgit Nilsson for those who are into that sort of thing!
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 30, 2019 10:45:05 GMT
But nobody has mentioned the dogs in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Yes, Anita has just done so ahead of me!
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 30, 2019 10:29:24 GMT
I was going to mention the pony in La Fill mal gardée and the pigeons in The Two Pigeons ballets but crabtree beat me to it.
But nobody has mentioned the dogs in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I saw it at the Palladium a number of times and my pal Graham Hoadly who played several small roles in the show and covered a number of others said the dogs were horrible to work with. There were several teams of different breeds and the audience loved their scenes but the actors didn't! There was also one brilliant scene that later got cut in which one dog sat still while a rifle was fired but then was startled and ran off stage at some very quiet incident which I can no longer recall.
But the most surprising instance of dogs on stage was in the Crazy Gang revue Young at Heart that I saw at the Victoria Palace in 1960. The scene was the front garden of a pretty house with a white wooden picket fence and the members of the Crazy Gang came on stage each with a dog on a lead and the dogs proceeded to pee up against the fence while the yellow liquid ran downstage towards the footlights, presumably to be collected in some kind of gutter. The audience thought this was hilarious and the scene was received with gales of laughter, although I thought it was just in very bad taste and not in the least bit funny – but what do I know about humour in the theatre, me who hated One Man, Two Guvnors?
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 28, 2019 18:55:15 GMT
I would just like to pay tribute to my fellow Australian, the critic, writer and TV personality Clive James who died a few days ago.
I first met Clive in Sydney in 1958 when I was playing piano for the annual Sydney University Revue. He contributed some material to the revue and also wrote for the University newspaper Honi Soit.
We both came to London in the early 1960s and I rescued him from a ghastly bed-sitting room in Tufnell Park when he moved in to share my flat in Marylebone for about six months before he went to Cambridge University.
I introduced him to opera at Covent Garden (a genre to which he took with great gusto), and he taught me a lot about jazz, American movies of the 1930s and 40s (which we used to go to see at the National Film Theatre), and other cultural things like poetry and literature.
Life with Clive was never dull and I am grateful for the companionship we shared for that brief time.
Our lives moved apart but I was a great fan of his newspaper TV reviews and his TV programmes and we picked up our contact again by email in the last few years.
A unique voice is now silent forever.
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Post by tonyloco on Nov 17, 2019 15:45:42 GMT
Very difficult question. But without a detailed knowledge of the whole canon, and trying to evaluate the merit of the plays not just from the staged performances I have seen, but also from movies and from the written texts, I propose:
1. Hamlet 2. Henry IVs 3. Macbeth
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Post by tonyloco on Jul 31, 2019 14:03:22 GMT
Further information on fully digital productions can be found on the two websites (QPAC and OA). That's all I know!
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Post by tonyloco on Jul 25, 2019 9:14:22 GMT
Please can the Mods decide whether this thread should be here or in the International section.
Opera Australia will be staging the first ever fully digital production of Wagner's Ring cycle at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, between 10 November and 5 December 2020, directed by Shi-Zheng Chen.
Tickets are now on sale from QPAC at qpac.com.au and also from Opera Australia (opera.org.au) and further details of dates and casting can be found on both websites.
Never mind Bayreuth – Brisbane is the top go-to destination for Wagnerites next year!
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Post by tonyloco on Jul 12, 2019 11:18:02 GMT
Newly arrived in London from Sydney in March 1960, the very first show I saw in the West End was the revue 'Pieces of Eight' with Kenneth Williams and Fenella Fielding and brilliant it was!
I then saw a number of the plays in which KW appeared but he had a tendency to 'muck about' during some performances and it became fairly clear that he was not temperamentally suited to a career in the theatre, even in comedies.
I believe all this has been documented in books and articles but I just thought I would register that I saw it for myself first hand and I think it was the right thing that he took the 'Carry On' route rather than remain in the world of 'straight' theatre.
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Post by tonyloco on Jun 15, 2019 17:53:10 GMT
Yes. Zeffirelli was a very talented director of films, stage plays and operas.
I saw his production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic in I think 1960 which starred John Stride and Judi Dench and was brilliant.
Around that time he also did some outstanding opera productions at Covent Garden, including a very atmospheric Cavalleria rusticana (Mascagni) and Pagliacci (Leoncavallo) as well as Verdi's Falstaff. And he also did a powerful production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden in 1959 which propelled Joan Sutherland to international fame, and followed it up with a glorious production of Handel's Alcina for Sutherland in which she earned the title of La Stupenda.
I was then fortunate in 1964 to see his productions of Puccini's Tosca at Covent Garden and Bellini's Norma at the Paris Opéra, both with Maria Callas.
All his work that I saw was very traditional, but always on a grand scale that suited the works concerned.
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Post by tonyloco on May 27, 2019 10:57:07 GMT
Mine is easy, if a little off the wall.
Back in 1954, Gypsy Rose Lee gave a show in Sydney at what was then called the Palladium Theatre for 12 nights. At the ripe old age of 17, and quite heavily into musicals, I decided I had no wish to see a tired old American stripper so I gave the show a miss. How I regretted doing that when Gypsy opened on Broadway in 1959 and became one of the great American musicals!
Is there anybody on TheatreBoard who saw Gypsy Rose Lee do a striptease live in a stage show?
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Post by tonyloco on Apr 28, 2019 11:18:31 GMT
My instinctive response is a very strong no although in truth I don't think I got much from doing it st school. I had on the whole decent teachers I think but everything seemed to be reduced down to one single meaning and learning a quote to shove in an essay. It didn't instill any excitment or love for it but then on the whole I think I ended up disliking most of the novels we studied too, I resented the 'this means that and nothing else' approach, there was no room for debate, felt like box ticking. Oh and I did English lit up to degree and no one taught me any grammar. I must have been very fortunate with my education back in Sydney in the early 1950s to have had a brilliant English teacher who instilled in me a love of Shakespeare, and also taught grammar that has stood me in good stead over the years, especially in editing and writing notes for the hundreds of classical CD booklets that I produced for EMI Classics. But back to Shakespeare: over three years, my English teacher brought out the humour in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the drama in Macbeth as well as taking us through The Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar in detail, and to this day I remain hugely grateful to him for his teaching skills that opened a wonderful door that enabled me to understand and appreciate all the works of Shakespeare, not only in their pure form as plays but in the way they have inspired operas, ballets, musicals and films, and in the way so many of the words and phrases he used are in common every-day usage by people who have no idea where they come from. So my answer is not to drop Shakespeare from the curriculum but to concentrate on finding the best way for teachers to awaken the interest of children in these essential treasures of English theatre and literature.
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Post by tonyloco on Apr 20, 2019 22:26:37 GMT
I quite enjoyed the programme about Oscar Wilde on BBC2 tonight but I thought the acting by the women in the scenes from the plays was very disappointing. The men just about scraped by but the women were underwhelming to say the least and seemed too lightweight to convince in the strong characters they were portraying like Mrs Erlynne and Lady Windemere. Was this just me being hard to please and living in the past when stage actresses gave bigger and more powerful performances? The only actresses mentioned on the internet are Claire Skinner and Anna Chancellor, whose Lady Bracknell seemed to me to be too young although she did find the laughs in the famous dialogue about the handbag.
The bit I enjoyed most was the scene from Salome (done in English) which of course was what Richard Strauss used in a German translation for the libretto of his famous opera.
I am talking only about the extracts from the plays and not the presentation of Wilde himself, which I thought was very well done by the various actors and writers.
What did other people think?
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Post by tonyloco on Apr 19, 2019 20:33:52 GMT
May I just join in this tribute to a wonderful show that meant so much to me because it was full of glorious songs that I seem to have known all of my 81 years of life. I learned most of them from my mother, who was a great movie buff, and the cast of highly talented performers brought all those magnificent songs totally to life.
My eleven visits were among the happiest I have ever spent in a theatre and for all except the first I was in the front row, well the end seats in A row actually.
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Post by tonyloco on Apr 13, 2019 11:04:13 GMT
Going back to a topic discussed earlier in this thread, old Australians like me used the word 'good' to mean 'OK', 'noted' or 'understood' in both positive and negative situations. I don't know whether this usage continues nowadays, but it used to lead to some curious conversational exchanges, like:
Landlord: "I am increasing your rent from £500 per month to £800 per month." Tenant: "Good."
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 29, 2019 13:48:02 GMT
I will not be going to any performances of the new Forza at the Opera House but I am intrigued to read the various reports by knowledgeable opera-goers here on this forum and I can't resist adding my recollections of two memorable performances I heard of this problematical opera back in the past. One was a Saturday matinee at the old Met in New York in 1965 with Franco Corelli and Ettore Bastianini, which was great fun to see those two big stars enjoying themselves in those two major roles. Sadly, the Leonora was Gabriella Tucci, who was seriously over-parted in that big house, but it was still an occasion to relish.
The other memorable production was the one at the Coliseum with Pauline Tinsley and Donald Smith as the ill-fated lovers, Joyce Blackham as Preziosilla, Don Garrard as Padre Guardiano and the brilliant Derek Hammond Stroud as Melitone. I don't remember the details, but the action had been moved to take place during two wars in the same country, which made dramatic sense of the chronology of the story, and musically and dramatically it was overwhelming. Tinsley and Smith were the Verdi spinto singers of their day par excellence, and the rest of the regular ENO cast were also wonderful. Even the English translation was enjoyable and I went to as many performances as I could manage, always sitting in the front stalls. It seemed to me (and to the rest of my opera-going pals at that time) to be just about as good as a big dramatic Verdi opera could get in performance. Sure, it wasn't an iconic Otello, but it was a huge feast of wonderful music performed in the most highly satisfactory and satisfying way – and wholly traditionally staged!
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 29, 2019 12:59:05 GMT
ETA: No, sorry, I'm wrong. It's an old Marie Lloyd music hall number of course! tonyloco will probably have the sheet music somewhere. No, I can find no reference to a song called 'Tick Tock' in the repertoire of Marie Lloyd, but Michael Kilgarriff's splendid book 'Sing Us One of the Old Songs' (OUP 1998) says that it was sung by Albert Chevalier in 1894. The lyrics are by Harry V. Barnett and the music by Alfred H. West. No, I don't have a copy of the sheet music, at least as far as I know, and I cannot find any recording of it by anybody. I am intrigued that the Theatre Monkey believes it was a Marie Lloyd song – did he hear her sing it some time back in his youth? I thought I was the oldest inhabitant in this community…!
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 22, 2019 11:12:02 GMT
I immediately exclaimed in a loud falsetto voice:
"Oh, my seat's all covered in coats!"
This rather surprising outburst had the desired effect and there was a flurry of people in adjoining seats reclaiming their garments so that I could occupy the place for which I had paid. It never happened again!
I love the detail of the falsetto voice. Please say you also either placed one hand on your forehead and extended the other, or threw both up in horror. I also like the "it never happened again" as though word had got around! "No, no, what are you doing? Don't put your coat there, I've heard there's this person who turns up and shrieks in a really high voice!" No, the loud falsetto cry was not accompanied by any theatrical gestures apart from whatever expression I may have had on my face! As to the next part, the Amphitheatre patrons in those days were a close-knit community when that part of the house had its own entrance in Floral Street via a long flight of stairs and was totally separate from the 'downstairs' areas of Stalls, Stalls Circle, Grand Tier and Balcony Stalls, so it is quite possible that my reputation as a shrieker over coats on seats may well have become established among those who sat in the Amphi!
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 21, 2019 12:00:19 GMT
Today's Telegraph reports on a case where an irate opera-goer at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, arrived for a performance of Wagner's Siegfried to find that his seat was occupied by the coat of the woman sitting in the next seat. He picked up the coat and threw it onto the woman's lap, thereby starting a brawl with the woman's husband, during which punches were allegedly exchanged. The man denies assault by beating and there are apparently a large number of witnesses due to give evidence. Sounds like a fun day in court!
"And so, Mrs X, what did you think of the opera?"
It does make me wonder why people arriving at their seats in a theatre seem to think it is OK to drape their coats and other items over the empty seats in front of them or beside them, apparently in the expectation that those seats will remain empty for the rest of the evening. They then have to collect up their clothes when the occupants of those other seats arrive. Are these perhaps people who only go to the theatre on rare occasions and don't expect it to be well-attended, or are they just being thoughtlessly selfish and think they have a right to spread themselves onto seats they haven't bought?
I recall an instance many years ago when I reached my row in the Amphitheatre at the Royal Opera House and found literally a pile of coats on what was my seat. I immediately exclaimed in a loud falsetto voice:
"Oh, my seat's all covered in coats!"
This rather surprising outburst had the desired effect and there was a flurry of people in adjoining seats reclaiming their garments so that I could occupy the place for which I had paid. It never happened again!
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