A Right Royal Knees Up, Theatre Royal Haymarket, June 5 2016
Jun 6, 2016 0:15:17 GMT
mallardo, Nicholas, and 2 more like this
Post by Steve on Jun 6, 2016 0:15:17 GMT
This was a Variety Show, earlier tonight, to raise money for the Royal Theatrical Fund. It was a lot of fun.
The evening began inauspiciously, with a message from Judi Dench, supposedly emanating from a phone held by Robert Lindsay, in which after a few jokes ("3g or not 3g, that is the question. . ."), she apologised that she was indisposed. The audience was crushed.
The first performers were the brass band, "Oompah Brass," who warmed up the crowd with their bravura playing and enthusiasm, including an all-brass version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Since actors aren't generally entertainers, as such, over the course of the night, quite a few of them showed up on stage, started to recite a passage from a play or some such, and got dragged off by a big hook wielded by a man in black wearing a mask, to much laughter. Some were more terrible than others, and seeing the back of them was welcomed by the audience. These included such actors as Stephanie Cole, Natascha McElhone, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Samantha Bond, Maureen Lipman and Joanna Lumley. One actor whose removal by the masked man was not at all welcome was Dame Maggie Smith. It was quite clear that she could read a phone book and the audience would lap it up, and she was most amused, and giggling, when the masked man received a tumultuously roaring chorus of boos from the audience, when he hooked her and removed her from the stage. For the audience, if anything could make up for the absence of Dame Judi, it was the presence of Dame Maggie lol. Eventually, the masked man came on stage himself to "perform," and took his mask off to reveal he was Derek Jacobi, after which he started to recite "To be or not to be" only to be dragged off stage by all the actors he had previously hooked and removed lol.
The actual entertainment in the first half was provided by comperes Robert Lindsay and Rob Brydon telling a few funny jokes, before giving way to Brian Conley, an all-round entertainer who not only performed some amusing stand-up, but also sang a hearty medley of pop hits, culminating in a rousing round of "Hey Jude" involving the audience singing the "nah nah nah nah" refrain. Michael Ball took over to sing his "Mack and Mabel" number, "I won't send roses," followed by "You made me love you," which he half hilariously, and half embarrassingly, sang to a lifesize cardboard cut-out of the Queen, in celebration of her 90th birthday, a homage to the historical moment when Judy Garland sang this same song to Clark Gable on his birthday. It takes a brave performer to sing to a cut-out of the Queen, which he ceremoniously kissed at the end lol. To round out the first half, Wayne Sleep did some deliberately camp ballet moves, then some vigorous tap dancing.
The second half proved better than the first, with entertainment provided once again by Rob Brydon, in full stand-up mode this time, followed by a reading of Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in all those different funny voices that Brydon is famous for mimicking. In the end, it was not the big voices, such as Al Pacino, that got the biggest laughs, but the dull drab monotony of Alan Bennett, the immediately recognisable sing-song upward inflections to Bennett's mimicked voice meriting all-round belly laughter.
Brydon then joined Robert Lindsay for an uproarious sketch where the two of them played guitars very badly, while patronising the guitar skills of guest star Mark Knopfler, formerly of Dire Straits, who they insisted on teaching the "C" and "E" chords, which seemed to be the only chords they knew anyway. Knopfler accompanied them on guitar for a song.
Then Jim Carter showed up, concealing his tiny wife, Imelda Staunton, behind his enormous frame. He performed a trick whereby he threw a table tennis ball in the air and caught it on his nose, which I assume was sticky, as the ball remained there. After applause, he introduced Staunton, who performed a cappella Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Why Walk when you can fly?" While most of the evening was comedic in tone, this was a truly tender rendition of a moving song, more striking than Carpenter's original version for having starkly removed all instrumentation.
Janie Dee came on dressed as a Queen, for a comic number, in which her lusty thirst for an ice-cream that she was brandishing, was always destined to be quenched, whereupon she fed the rest to some chap on the front row lol.
Peter Polycarpou showed up as part of a trio who called themselves "the Chippenfails," who amusingly tried to cover their (clothed) private parts with bits of paper they kept dropping, having to tear the remaining pieces into ever smaller pieces every time a piece was dropped and lost.
The highlight of the night was the reunion of the "Me and My Girl" duo from the eighties, Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson, performing such numbers as "Leaning on a Lamp-post," "Me and My Girl," and of course, "The Lambeth Walk." Thompson still sounds sweet and dreamy, and despite failing to catch his cap on his head the first time he twirled it, Lindsay is still the infectiously engaging charmer he always was, so between the two of them, this was a genuinely lovely and vivacious trip down memory lane! "The Lambeth Walk" was driven up yet another gear with the reentrance of the entire ensemble to dance and sing along behind the principals, including a sweetly swaying giggling Dame Maggie Smith and a raucous Derek Jacobi, dancing with Janie Dee like a livewire, proving his lively dandy of a Mercutio may be closer to the real him than I had imagined.
At the end, Derek Jacobi came to the fore to recite Prospero's speech from "The Tempest," as the show "melted into air, into thin air."
While the performers left the stage (and the theatre), the brass band, Oompah Brass, returned to wind down proceedings by leading an effervescent singalong of Queen's "We are the Champions."
The Royal Theatrical Fund put on a good show, in it's bid to raise a hefty amount of money for theatrical artists who fall on hard times. Well done to them!
The evening began inauspiciously, with a message from Judi Dench, supposedly emanating from a phone held by Robert Lindsay, in which after a few jokes ("3g or not 3g, that is the question. . ."), she apologised that she was indisposed. The audience was crushed.
The first performers were the brass band, "Oompah Brass," who warmed up the crowd with their bravura playing and enthusiasm, including an all-brass version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
Since actors aren't generally entertainers, as such, over the course of the night, quite a few of them showed up on stage, started to recite a passage from a play or some such, and got dragged off by a big hook wielded by a man in black wearing a mask, to much laughter. Some were more terrible than others, and seeing the back of them was welcomed by the audience. These included such actors as Stephanie Cole, Natascha McElhone, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, Samantha Bond, Maureen Lipman and Joanna Lumley. One actor whose removal by the masked man was not at all welcome was Dame Maggie Smith. It was quite clear that she could read a phone book and the audience would lap it up, and she was most amused, and giggling, when the masked man received a tumultuously roaring chorus of boos from the audience, when he hooked her and removed her from the stage. For the audience, if anything could make up for the absence of Dame Judi, it was the presence of Dame Maggie lol. Eventually, the masked man came on stage himself to "perform," and took his mask off to reveal he was Derek Jacobi, after which he started to recite "To be or not to be" only to be dragged off stage by all the actors he had previously hooked and removed lol.
The actual entertainment in the first half was provided by comperes Robert Lindsay and Rob Brydon telling a few funny jokes, before giving way to Brian Conley, an all-round entertainer who not only performed some amusing stand-up, but also sang a hearty medley of pop hits, culminating in a rousing round of "Hey Jude" involving the audience singing the "nah nah nah nah" refrain. Michael Ball took over to sing his "Mack and Mabel" number, "I won't send roses," followed by "You made me love you," which he half hilariously, and half embarrassingly, sang to a lifesize cardboard cut-out of the Queen, in celebration of her 90th birthday, a homage to the historical moment when Judy Garland sang this same song to Clark Gable on his birthday. It takes a brave performer to sing to a cut-out of the Queen, which he ceremoniously kissed at the end lol. To round out the first half, Wayne Sleep did some deliberately camp ballet moves, then some vigorous tap dancing.
The second half proved better than the first, with entertainment provided once again by Rob Brydon, in full stand-up mode this time, followed by a reading of Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in all those different funny voices that Brydon is famous for mimicking. In the end, it was not the big voices, such as Al Pacino, that got the biggest laughs, but the dull drab monotony of Alan Bennett, the immediately recognisable sing-song upward inflections to Bennett's mimicked voice meriting all-round belly laughter.
Brydon then joined Robert Lindsay for an uproarious sketch where the two of them played guitars very badly, while patronising the guitar skills of guest star Mark Knopfler, formerly of Dire Straits, who they insisted on teaching the "C" and "E" chords, which seemed to be the only chords they knew anyway. Knopfler accompanied them on guitar for a song.
Then Jim Carter showed up, concealing his tiny wife, Imelda Staunton, behind his enormous frame. He performed a trick whereby he threw a table tennis ball in the air and caught it on his nose, which I assume was sticky, as the ball remained there. After applause, he introduced Staunton, who performed a cappella Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Why Walk when you can fly?" While most of the evening was comedic in tone, this was a truly tender rendition of a moving song, more striking than Carpenter's original version for having starkly removed all instrumentation.
Janie Dee came on dressed as a Queen, for a comic number, in which her lusty thirst for an ice-cream that she was brandishing, was always destined to be quenched, whereupon she fed the rest to some chap on the front row lol.
Peter Polycarpou showed up as part of a trio who called themselves "the Chippenfails," who amusingly tried to cover their (clothed) private parts with bits of paper they kept dropping, having to tear the remaining pieces into ever smaller pieces every time a piece was dropped and lost.
The highlight of the night was the reunion of the "Me and My Girl" duo from the eighties, Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson, performing such numbers as "Leaning on a Lamp-post," "Me and My Girl," and of course, "The Lambeth Walk." Thompson still sounds sweet and dreamy, and despite failing to catch his cap on his head the first time he twirled it, Lindsay is still the infectiously engaging charmer he always was, so between the two of them, this was a genuinely lovely and vivacious trip down memory lane! "The Lambeth Walk" was driven up yet another gear with the reentrance of the entire ensemble to dance and sing along behind the principals, including a sweetly swaying giggling Dame Maggie Smith and a raucous Derek Jacobi, dancing with Janie Dee like a livewire, proving his lively dandy of a Mercutio may be closer to the real him than I had imagined.
At the end, Derek Jacobi came to the fore to recite Prospero's speech from "The Tempest," as the show "melted into air, into thin air."
While the performers left the stage (and the theatre), the brass band, Oompah Brass, returned to wind down proceedings by leading an effervescent singalong of Queen's "We are the Champions."
The Royal Theatrical Fund put on a good show, in it's bid to raise a hefty amount of money for theatrical artists who fall on hard times. Well done to them!
