Mel Brooks and his London Stage Version of “Young Frankenstein”.

I decided to see “Young Frankenstein” before it closed because I was enamored with the film, which I saw four times, and I think that Mel Brooks is a genius, a brilliant comic, a great writer, and a very clever film director. All that in just one small package which spells ‘MEL BROOKS’!

  

Mel Brooks

Well I should have saved my money. The best thing about the Show was the Curtain.

Nimax Theatres Ltd., I believe, is the company that owns the Garrick Theatre.

 

 The Garrick Theatre

Instead of acquiring another theatre, as they seem to do like like a baby octopus, they should spend some of their shekels on cleaning up and refurbishing the Garrick Theatre. It is a disgrace! When you sit in the dress circle you expect the seats to be comfortable. Not at the Garrick! The padding has practically worn down to the wood, and those that are in a fairly good condition are even worse, because you can finish up with a spring hallway up your arse!

Last year when I saw Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon in “The Painkiller” at the Garrick, I sat in the dress circle, maybe it could have been the same seat, and finished up with arse ache!  That was a ‘Real Painkiller’ and how appropriate! What a pun that is!

Well, things haven’t improved!

The usherettes stand at the doorway chewing gum and selling programmes, and they do not move. They’re busy talking! and talking! and talking! I think it was about the boys make-up!  They are not interested in showing you to your seat. I was told ‘Row D, Centre!’ by he or she or it. I didn’t know what it was!  All I do know is that usherettes are supposed to usher, move their arses, and take you to your seat. Not stand in the entrance talking and chewing and looking very bored. No wonder the show is coming off!  Most probably they are in the same quandary as the audience because they also don’t know where the rows are. I entered the theatre and couldn’t see a bloody thing! Remember I’m 88, no spring chicken! After stumbling around I found Row D. The aisles and quite a few seats are not numbered. Just a few have faded numbers. So you finish up counting from a number you can see to find your seat.

Nimax Theatres Ltd., do the bloody theatre up!!!

‘This is a fine start to my evening’s enjoyment’, I thought.

The Show itself was not good or really that funny. It was more like a No.1 touring version of the original West End production. In fact, I’ve seen better in the provinces. All I could think was that when Mel Brooks saw it, he quickly collected his money and caught the next plane back to the U.S.A. Very wise!

They were the best of the bunch, and even they seemed to be tired!

 I was so disappointed with the show that I left at the Interval.

I don’t blame the cast or the production. If the seats would have been comfortable and the usherettes would have done their job, maybe I would have seen the whole show from a different prospective

But I have to blame the two usherettes and Nimax Theatres Ltd., who started it all, and got me really pissed off, and put me into such a bad mood!!!  What a disaster!!!

I haven’t talked much about the show, because truthfully  there was nothing really  much of importance to talk about.

NOW “42nd. Street” at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. WOW!

That’s, what you call a Show!

I went from the ridiculous to the sublime! The show and the cast are fantastic! You just cannot fault it.

With a cast of over 50, it is a gem and should run for years.

I couldn’t believe that this was the same theatre that I played in when I was ‘ZEE and CO.” with Cannon and Ball when we made the T.V. Special so many, many, many years ago.

Lulu was excellent, you couldn’t fault her.

I left the Theatre a very, very, very happy bunny!  That is what Show Business is all about!  Great Theatre! Wonderful memories of when I was working there. and seeing a wonderfully spectacular show.

 

Epigram

As Colette once said and I agree:

“IT’S  SO  CURIOUS:  ONE  CAN  RESIST  TEARS  AND  ‘BEHAVE’  VERY  WELL  IN  THE  HARDEST  HOURS  OF  GRIEF.  BUT  THEN  SOMEONE  MAKES  YOU  A  FRIENDLY  SIGN  BEHIND  A  WINDOW,  OR ONE  NOTICES  THAT  A  FLOWER  THAT  WAS  IN  BUD  ONLY  YESTERDAY  HAS  SUDDENLY  BLOSSOMED  OR  A  LETTER  SLIPS  FROM  A  DRAWER……AND  EVERYTHING  COLLAPSES.”

Collette, the prolific French writer and early feminist supporter, was undeniably a talented novelist. She blended fine characterizations with intricate wordplay, resulting in engaging portraits of women enduring the ordeals of life.

Born Jan. 28, 1873,  Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, France   Died Aug. 3, 1954, Paris French writer. Her  first four Claudine novels (1903), the reminiscences of a  libertine ingenue, were published by her first husband, an important critic,  under his pen name, Willy. After separating from him, she worked as a music-hall  performer, a life she fictionalized in The Vagabond (1910). Among  her mature works are Cheri (1920), My Mother’s House  (1922), The Ripening Seed (1923), The Last of Chri  (1926), Sido (1930), and Gigi (1944; musical film,  1958), a comedy about a girl reared to be a courtesan. Her novels of the  pleasures and pains of love are remarkable for their exact evocation of sounds,  smells, tastes, textures, and colours. In her highly eventful life, she freely  flouted convention and repeatedly scandalized the French public, but by her late  years she had become a national icon.

In 1906, she left the unfaithful Gauthier-Villars, living for a time at the home of the American writer and salonist Natalie Clifford Barney. The two had a short affair, and remained friends until Colette’s death. She was also, according to author Jean-Claude Baker’s book Josephine: The Hungry Heart, involved for some time with actress Josephine Baker.

Colette went to work in the music halls of Paris, under the wing of Mathilde de Morny, Marwuise de Belbeuf, known as Missy, with whom she became romantically involved. In 1907, the two performed together in a pantomime entitled Rêve d’Égypte at the Moulin Rouge. Their onstage kiss nearly caused a riot, which the police were called in to suppress. As a result of this scandal, further performances of Rêve d’Égypte were banned, and Colette and de Morny were no longer able to openly live together, though their relationship continued for five years.^[5] She also was involved in a heterosexual relationship during this time, with the Italian writer Gabriele d’Annunzio. Another affair during this period was with the automobile-empire scion August Heriot.

A controversial figure throughout her life, Colette flaunted her lesbian affairs.

She was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy (1935), president of the Academie Goncourt (1949) (and the first woman to be admitted into it, in 1945), and a Chevalier (1920) and a Grand Officier (1953) of the Legion d’honneur.

During the German occupation of France during World War II, she aided her Jewish friends, including hiding her husband in her attic all through the war. When she died in Paris on 3 August 1954, she was the first woman given a state funeral in France, although she was refused Roman Catholic rites because of her divorces. Colette is interred in Pere Lachaise Cemetary in Paris.

Colette, painted ca. 1896 by Jacques Humbert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia