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"I'm in my underwear, in the dark, smeared with mash potato, alongside a lot of very confused middle class people."
"That's the audience, they're used to that"
Well, what do we think we've learnt? That the Lee and Herring audience is aging badly? That the audience for the follow-up (maybe a couple of projects further than that) to Jerry Springer: The Opera makes the Radio 4 audience for Hardy, Hamilton and so on look positively young and vibrant? That you can attract a class of people by anything with Elizabeth in the title? Or that people of a certain tendency are less likely to leave in the interval than you might have expected. But it wasn't the audience I expected.
Coming with less than ecstatic reviews from Edinburgh, this is initially dominated by Sir Walter Raleigh (Miles Jupp) in a Letterman mode, complete with house musician Little Meat from Virginia, and a precis (a slide show) of his life and honours to date. This featured Jimmy Carr in the slides as clown Will Kemp, a remarkably satiric touch, and much celebration of the potato (including a musical medley, "All You Need is Spuds" etc.))
After a remarkably lengthy time, he introduces Elizabeth (Simon Munnery), expecting a proposal of marriage, but in fact getting a death sentence. This Elizabeth is clearly more historically accurate than the version in The Tudors will be if it gets that far, but owes a debt to Miranda Richardson Blackadder II rather more than Glenda Jackson or Cate Blanchett. We get the mangled Tilbury speech, in which further organs are added to the heart bit, and we get an acknowledgement of how if one's mother is executed by one's father when one is three it's hardly convincing that one has commitment issues.
The piece is hardly long enough to need an interval, but the flashback adds to the jokes about it being a play (Elizabeth also notes she is being played by a man; there is a distinct shout out to Ben Elton and Richard Curtis), but the second "half" brings a splendid re-enactment of the Spanish Armada, with galleons for hats. (Note to self: work on ten galleon hat joke.) The dry ice choked about half the audience, mind. The ending risks getting very dark - and is in part dependent on how well you know your history - but is wrnched around to laughter in the end.
Perhaps it needs to be noted that the funniest bits were (apparently) ad libs (reactions to audience behavioir from seasoned comedy performers) and local references (a pint of Spitfire, Raleigh's drawn and quartered body being spread across the campus and dumped in the Venue - the nightclub - to give real meaning to the term "Meat market".)
"That's the audience, they're used to that"
Well, what do we think we've learnt? That the Lee and Herring audience is aging badly? That the audience for the follow-up (maybe a couple of projects further than that) to Jerry Springer: The Opera makes the Radio 4 audience for Hardy, Hamilton and so on look positively young and vibrant? That you can attract a class of people by anything with Elizabeth in the title? Or that people of a certain tendency are less likely to leave in the interval than you might have expected. But it wasn't the audience I expected.
Coming with less than ecstatic reviews from Edinburgh, this is initially dominated by Sir Walter Raleigh (Miles Jupp) in a Letterman mode, complete with house musician Little Meat from Virginia, and a precis (a slide show) of his life and honours to date. This featured Jimmy Carr in the slides as clown Will Kemp, a remarkably satiric touch, and much celebration of the potato (including a musical medley, "All You Need is Spuds" etc.))
After a remarkably lengthy time, he introduces Elizabeth (Simon Munnery), expecting a proposal of marriage, but in fact getting a death sentence. This Elizabeth is clearly more historically accurate than the version in The Tudors will be if it gets that far, but owes a debt to Miranda Richardson Blackadder II rather more than Glenda Jackson or Cate Blanchett. We get the mangled Tilbury speech, in which further organs are added to the heart bit, and we get an acknowledgement of how if one's mother is executed by one's father when one is three it's hardly convincing that one has commitment issues.
The piece is hardly long enough to need an interval, but the flashback adds to the jokes about it being a play (Elizabeth also notes she is being played by a man; there is a distinct shout out to Ben Elton and Richard Curtis), but the second "half" brings a splendid re-enactment of the Spanish Armada, with galleons for hats. (Note to self: work on ten galleon hat joke.) The dry ice choked about half the audience, mind. The ending risks getting very dark - and is in part dependent on how well you know your history - but is wrnched around to laughter in the end.
Perhaps it needs to be noted that the funniest bits were (apparently) ad libs (reactions to audience behavioir from seasoned comedy performers) and local references (a pint of Spitfire, Raleigh's drawn and quartered body being spread across the campus and dumped in the Venue - the nightclub - to give real meaning to the term "Meat market".)
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