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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jun 12, 2020 19:30:19 GMT
Lots of discussion about the “cancellation” of Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Kevin and Stacey, Little Britain etc.
There must be some theatre that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I can think of one (so called) comedy musical in particular that I’ve been calling out for ages.
Does theatre get a free pass because it’s “art” while popular tv comedies get cancelled?
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Post by Jon on Jun 12, 2020 19:34:21 GMT
Lots of discussion about the “cancellation” of Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Kevin and Stacey, Little Britain etc. There must be some theatre that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I can think of one (so called) comedy musical in particular that I’ve been calling out for ages. Does theatre get a free pass because it’s “art” while popular tv comedies get cancelled? Gavin and Stacey isn't being pulled, it was a made up story in the tabloids. Mame is one musical has aged badly and probably one of the reasons it's not revived now. |
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Post by sf on Jun 12, 2020 19:39:28 GMT
Lots of discussion about the “cancellation” of Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Kevin and Stacey, Little Britain etc. There must be some theatre that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I can think of one (so called) comedy musical in particular that I’ve been calling out for ages. Does theatre get a free pass because it’s “art” while popular tv comedies get cancelled? The Chinese characters in the 1987 version of Anything Goes - the standard edition of the show available for performance now - are wince-inducing. That element of the script wasn't funny thirty years ago, and it's way past its sell-by date now. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't get a free pass. |
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Post by sf on Jun 12, 2020 19:49:51 GMT
...and of course the N-word in Show Boat has to be approached very carefully these days. I've heard someone complain about theatres being too scared to perform certain lyrics as originally written in 1927 - particularly the question of precisely WHO works on the Mississipi in the opening chorus - and it's a ridiculous argument. Certain words, most definitely including that one, are too freighted now to be thrown around the way they were 90 years ago. Given the show's plot, the word has to be used - but it has to be deployed consciously and carefully with an awareness that it will land like a bomb.
For my money, the Goodspeed script - the version that was the basis for the recent-ish revival in Sheffield and London - found the right balance. It would be VERY easy to get it wrong.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jun 12, 2020 19:51:01 GMT
Lots of discussion about the “cancellation” of Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Kevin and Stacey, Little Britain etc. There must be some theatre that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I can think of one (so called) comedy musical in particular that I’ve been calling out for ages. Does theatre get a free pass because it’s “art” while popular tv comedies get cancelled? Gavin and Stacey isn't being pulled, it was a made up story in the tabloids. Mame is one musical has aged badly and probably one of the reasons it's not revived now. In the recent Hope Mill revival I didn’t notice anything untoward. The lyric about cotton was removed though. What else is problematic? |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jun 12, 2020 19:51:58 GMT
Thoroughly Modern Millie?
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jun 12, 2020 20:06:40 GMT
Thoroughly Modern Millie? Yes and that's even without Michelle Collins |
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Post by Jon on Jun 12, 2020 20:12:30 GMT
Gavin and Stacey isn't being pulled, it was a made up story in the tabloids. Mame is one musical has aged badly and probably one of the reasons it's not revived now. In the recent Hope Mill revival I didn’t notice anything untoward. The lyric about cotton was removed though. What else is problematic? Just the bit you mentioned. She marries a cotton plantation owner in the show and cotton plantations in the Deep South have historical links to slavery. |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jun 12, 2020 20:16:24 GMT
In the recent Hope Mill revival I didn’t notice anything untoward. The lyric about cotton was removed though. What else is problematic? Just the bit you mentioned. She marries a cotton plantation owner in the show and cotton plantations in the Deep South have historical links to slavery. But how is it mentioned? We all know people unfortunately owned them and we can't erase those facts |
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Post by jaqs on Jun 12, 2020 20:24:36 GMT
Gigi is problematic.
We’d not have a blacked up Othello anymore.
It’s easier for theatre to fade away than TV. No one in the 60s could have imagined that the world would start beaming their shows into their homes on demand when the world had changed so much.
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Post by Jon on Jun 12, 2020 20:27:26 GMT
Gigi is problematic. We’d not have a blacked up Othello anymore. It’s easier for theatre to fade away than TV. No one in the 60s could have imagined that the world would start beaming their shows into their homes on demand when the world had changed so much. Laurence Olivier played Othello on screen black faced. Miss Saigon was problematic back in 1989 when Jonathan Pryce played The Engineer. |
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Post by talkingheads on Jun 12, 2020 20:28:24 GMT
Personally I think censoring comedy shows or indeed any art from the past is wrong. It is as much a part of history as anything else and looking back on it enables us to see how far we have come. Put a warning up before the show to explain and give context to it, then people who might be offended can choose not to watch.
In the case of Fawlty Towers for example. The Major is a relic from another age and his awful language reflects that. It isn't endorsed by Fawlty in the scene.
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Post by sf on Jun 12, 2020 20:36:00 GMT
In the case of Fawlty Towers for example. The Major is a relic from another age and his awful language reflects that. It isn't endorsed by Fawlty in the scene. Quite, but there's a huge difference between Fawlty Towers and something like Love Thy Neighbour - another 70s sitcom, but one which you will never see repeated, and with good reason. In the case of Show Boat, which I cited further up this thread, it's not about censorship. It's about understanding that the impact of certain words and certain tropes has changed over the past century to the point where you have to take into account that they will land very differently with an audience today. |
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Post by The Matthew on Jun 12, 2020 20:48:31 GMT
Personally I think censoring comedy shows or indeed any art from the past is wrong. It is as much a part of history as anything else and looking back on it enables us to see how far we have come. I think there are some works that we can do without: anything based around the idea of "these people are not like us; let us mock them for their different ways". But when a work is clearly holding the attitudes of the past up to ridicule then yes, we do need to keep it around. If we cover up too much then we're playing straight into the hands of the deniers who peddle the fiction that things weren't as bad as everyone claims. |
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Post by Jon on Jun 12, 2020 21:01:42 GMT
It’s surprising that black face was even acceptable in the 2000s. The one I remember wincing at the time was at Kevin Bishop spoofing Keisha from the Sugababes in blackface and that was only 12 years ago
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