Whose Live Anyway?

I was a big fan of the show Whose Line is it Anyway?  Now, for those who do not remember, the show started off on BBC radio, and then moved to the TV.  Clive Anderson was the host of the British TV show, and there were a variety of guests, all of whom were improvisational comedians.  Clive would take suggestions from the audience and then the guests who improvise little scenes based on the suggestions.  The comedians were a mix of British and Americans.

When the British version went off the air, it was brought to the US by Drew Carey, who acted as the host, and again with a variety of guest comedians.

And now…..

Whose Live Anyway?

A travelling show, featuring two of the staples of the TV shows, Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops, and two other performers who, at least they claim, appeared on the show.  They didn't say which one.

However, who is in it is not really all that important, though the familiar faces make it easy to believe that the show will be good.

Was it, you ask?

Yes.

90 minutes of Improv, and good improv.

They did take audience suggestions, and one of the funnier things was the comedians trying to make out what the audience was shouting.  I think it got too much, because towards the end, Greg Proops came right out to the front of the stage and tried getting suggestions from specific audience members in the first few rows.  Greg had his anti-heckler hat on and while not being rude, at one point, after a man yelled something from the back of the audience, he looked up…

"I'm not talking to you Mr. White Male Privilege."

And he followed it up with a hand gesture of a mouth closing.

Probably the funniest bit was the pose-able comedian bit.  They brought up two audience members, and then improvised a scene about two artists at the Pecan Street Festival.  Few outside of Austin are going to know that the Pecan Street Festival is a local arts festival that happens on Sixth Street, which used to be named Pecan Street.  The two ladies had to move the comedians about, since they stood completely still unless their arms were moved…and their legs.  It led to lots of hilarious poses.

They did a piece where they made two audience members provide sound effects.  Jeff B. Davis improvised a song for an audience member whose son called her a demon unicorn.  They also did a bit called "New Choice" that I had never seen before, where two comedians did a scene and at random a third would say "New Choice" and that meant that the actor who said the previous line had to come up with a line with a different choice.  It worked very well.

Before the show, they gave about 20 people in the audience strips of paper and pens and asked them to write down a line of dialogue on the paper.  They then collected the paper, and improvised a skit, while randomly pulling out and reading a line from a strip.  This was hilarious, because in virtually all cases, the lines on the strips had nothing to do with what they had been improvising, which meant that the skit kept making abrupt turns.

Unfortunately, there are only two more dates in this Tour, and they are in Las Vegas next weekend, but if you get a chance, I can highly recommend Whose Live Anyway.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

…a man with a stoat through his head.

Yes, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I first discovered the show back in High School on PBS. I had to be home early-ish on Saturday nights, but my parents didn’t seem to mind if I stayed up late to watch silly TV.

I think the sheer absurdity is what first drew me in. Skits that didn’t have a punch line, segues that made no sense, which is what made them funny, men in drag, and the even-more-absurd-than-the-rest-of-the-show cartoons.

It wasn’t until years later that I found them again and once again on PBS and managed to see all of them…well, almost all of them. Despite watching them for many years it wasn’t until I bought them on DVD that I found I had never seen The Money Programme.

From Spam to Dead Parrots, the six Pythons have given the world some of the funniest moments ever recorded. In The Lumberjack Song, Oh you’re no fun anymore, Whizzo Butter, Nudge Nudge, Confuse a Cat, Upper Class Twit of the Year, the Fish License, Crunchy Frog, the Dirty Vicar and the Ministry of Silly Walks, they have given us comic bits that have become part of our collective psyche.

Every so often I am overcome by the desire to see them again and that time has come again. This time I found them on Netflix and I hope that a little of my monthly fee goes to the five surviving members. They have brought so many smiles to my face and giggles to my lips that I don’t mind sending a little money their way.

Jeeves and Wooster

Starting new things again.

I first read P.G. Wodehouse many years ago, and quite enjoyed it. I have read a few of the novels, and then I discovered the BBC series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. I totally enjoyed them, and last night I started watching them again. I am not sure that I will write reviews of all of them, but I will write a review of the first, and we shall see about the others later.

Jeeves takes Charge

We are introduced to Bertie Wooster in a courtroom, where he is clearly drunk and where the judge keeps telling him to shut up as he makes feeble attempts to defend himself. After being fined 5 pounds, he is sent home, where he collapses on his bed. The doorbell rings almost immediately, and after a bit of grunting and groaning (by Bertie) we are introduced to Jeeves.

Now that our two heroes are in place, Jeeves makes Bertie a hangover cure, and we are introduced to the world of Bertie Wooster, first, the Drones Club. Now, for those of you not familiar with P.G. Wodehouse or Jeeves and Wooster, you should take note of the name of Bertie's club, for I doubt it is accidental. The Drones Club is filled with idle young men with barely a brain cell between them, but you will understand more of that later. We are introduced to several players in later stories, but some of them are little more than names.

The scene at the Drones club starts with a moose stuck in the door. Yes, a moose, and that is the sort of thing that you should prepare yourself when watching Jeeves and Wooster. As with the books, the most extraordinarily silly things are likely to crop up at any moment. The moose is connected with two of Bertie's cousins, and a club called the Seekers that they wish to join. But, that is not important now (but will be later), so we rush off with Bertie for a lunch with his Aunt Agatha, the "nephew crusher."

Aunt Agatha introduces not only the central theme of this story, but a central theme of all the Jeeves and Wooster stories, romance, or more correctly marriage. Aunt Agatha wants to see Bertie married off to someone appropriate, and Bertie doesn't. It seems at times that Bertie has been engaged to about half of the girls in England, and considerably more than half of the girls who appear in these stories. With a few notable exceptions, these engagements are not Bertie's idea, and he wants nothing more to get out of them.

With ties in neatly with the next step in the plot and the next one of the central themes in the stories. Bertie discovers that his friend Bingo Little is madly in love with the girl that Aunt Agatha wants him to marry. So, Bertie comes up with a brilliant (at least he thinks so) plan to ensure that Anoria (the girl in question) falls for Bingo, leaving Bertie free once again. Now, the plan is not a central theme, though they appear often, the central theme is the inevitability of Bertie's plan going awry, and of course, it does.

The next central theme, one which takes a bit of time to work its way clear in this story, is Jeeves coming up with a plan to pull Bertie from the fire, saving him, in this case, from matrimony to the "athletic" woman with the look like a "sargeant major."

I don't really want to ruin the story, so I will leave it at that. But, this first episode is endearing, silly and loads of fun. Fry and Laurie are perfect as Jeeves and Wooster. The rest of the cast is at least adequate, though they change in later seasons, which is a problem for the series, most of the replacements are not better than the originals, and if you change, it should be for the better. Bertie is easy to like, and Jeeves is a true mastermind.

Hopefully, you will not only check out the excellent BBC series, but also find and read the original stories which are excellent light reading.