I’ve never claimed to be ahead of the curve, but last week I managed it – albeit accidentally – when I gave you my thoughts on the increase in drunken, selfish behaviour of audience members who insist on singing along with musical theatre performers, thereby spoiling the show for the majority.
Well, would you Adam and Eve it?
Just hours after I’d sent it to my esteemed editor (I’d tell you his name but in all the years I’ve worked for this paper he’s refused to tell me) I saw an item on the news that exemplified exactly what I’d written about.
A ‘mini-riot’ had broken out at Manchester’s Palace Theatre when a sloshed female audience member possessing the musical tones of a rhinoceros giving birth to triplets, stood up and joined in with the ballad “I Will Always Love You” during a Good Friday performance of the musical “The Bodyguard”.
The lady and another woman were ejected and the curtain brought down before the finale ended.
You’ve probably read about it or viewed the phone camera footage and wondered, like me, why certain people think the normal rules regarding how people are expected to behave in public don’t apply to them.
I was genuinely surprised by the number of people on various TV news programmes who attempted to justify unruly audience behaviour and couldn’t understand ‘What all the fuss was about’.
Hey ho! It’s us against them, folks!
Now to the business of the day . . .
When comedian Jim Moir (who was previously known as Vic Reeves) recently admitted that he hasn’t spoken to his former comedy partner Bob Mortimer for quite some time and they’re not great mates, a lot of people were surprised.
Which surprised me!
Because the history of comedy double acts is littered with resentments and rivalries, barneys and break-ups.
There are exceptions.
That Laurel and Hardy were good friends comes across on screen – which is not to sat they didn’t have the occasional argument like all work colleagues do.
Eric and Ernie respected each other professionally, but rarely socialised.
Eric had his fishing and his football club, while Ernie had other interests.
Until they became good mates again, Cannon and Ball fell out for a few years, which made working together very difficult.
Which reminds me of something I was told about Ryan and Ronnie.
They fell out to such an extent that during a long summer season, Ronnie would walk into their dressing room before a show, find Ryan reading his newspaper, they’d exchange nods, speak to each other only on stage and after the show they’d go their separate ways.
Putting an end to their enormously successful film career, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis split up in 1956, 10 years to the day after they first joined forces.
Jerry once said, “I write all our routines. Work out our choreography. Constantly rehearse. And Dean…plays golf”.
It took them 20 years to be friends again.
Remember those terrible winters back in the 1970s?
You remember Mike and Bernie!
I’m jesting.
They were a very slick, popular double act, but they too fell out in later years and Bernie started a new double act…with a gigantic St. Bernard dog named Schnorbitz!
Bernie daren’t fall out with her – or she’d eat him!