Author Archives: Aisle Seat

USA

1. A town on the coast of Maine    CAROUSEL
2. River City, Iowa    THE MUSIC MAN
3. Natchez    SHOWBOAT
4. Oregon in 1850    7 BRIDES FOR 7 BROTHERS
5. Skid Row    LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
6. Punxsutawney    GROUNDHOG DAY
7. Horace Green school    SCHOOL OF ROCK
8. Rainbow Valley, Missitucky    FINIAN’S RAINBOW
9. Sweet Apple, Ohio    BYE BYE BIRDIE
10. “The Cookie Jar”, a sanatorium    ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
11. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show    ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

UK

12. Sherwood Forest    TWANG!
13. “Legs Eleven”, a nightclub    EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE
14. Stradhoughton, Yorkshire    BILLY
15. Limmeridge, Cumberland    THE WOMAN IN WHITE
16. Ipswich    LONDON ROAD

Further Afield

17. Gander    COME FROM AWAY
18. Uganda    THE BOOK OF MORMON
19. On the River Styx    FROGS
20. An ocean liner named ‘Ile de France’    GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
21. A country mansion in Sweden    A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC
22. Kanagawa    PACIFIC OVERTURES
23. Merano, Italy    CHESS
24. Island of Kalokairi    MAMMA MIA
25. Artigat, France    MARTIN GUERRE
26. A mosque in Baghdad    KISMET
27. Anatevka in 1905    FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
28. The Pride Lands    THE LION KING
29. Seville in the 17^th century    MAN OF LA MANCHA
30. La Grande Jatte    SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

This is from 1986. There have only been a few occasions when I have been thrilled just to see an actor walk onto the stage. I had been watching Jack Lemmon on film all my life and there he was in front of me. ( I had the same reaction to John Malkovich and Jerry Lewis.) Kevin Spacey was almost unknown to British audiences at that time. This was a brilliant production of a chilling play. As was usual in the West End at that time, the programme contains a lot more advertising than information about the show. The theatre quiz towards the back is interesting, especially question 2. It does seem slightly bizarre that a show with very few laughs indeed should be produced by the Theatre of Comedy company.

Can you give the title of the song, the title of the show and the missing word ?

Then provide the ( very easy ) connection between all the missing words.

1. If I were a …………. I’d be burning.
2. And young Bobby Carr / Did a stunt at the ……. / With a lot of extraordinary men
3. A lavabo and a fancy chair/A mug of suds and a leather strop/ An …….. , a towel, a pail and a mop
4. When the moon is in the Seventh ………… / And Jupiter aligns with Mars
5. In here life is beautiful / The girls are beautiful / Even the ………… is beautiful
6. My heart wants to sigh like a chime that ………….
7. Nothing with …….. , nothing with fate / Weighty affairs will just have to wait
8. I can see her now, Mrs Freddy Eynsford-Hill / In a wretched little …….. above a store
9. There’s a hole in the world like a big black ……..
10. Woh woh for the ………

1. If I were a BRIDGE I’d be burning.

                 If I Were A Bell        Guys and Dolls

2. And young Bobby Carr / Did a stunt at the BAR / With a lot of extraordinary men

           I Went ( or I’ve Been ) To A Marvellous Party         Set To Music ( a revue by Noel Coward )

3. A lavabo and a fancy chair/A mug of suds and a leather strop/ An APRON , a towel, a pail and a mop

          The Ballad of Sweeney Todd               Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

4. When the moon is in the Seventh HOUSE / And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Aquarius               Hair

5. In here life is beautiful / The girls are beautiful / Even the ORCHESTRA is beautiful

Willkomen              Cabaret

6. My heart wants to sigh like a chime that FLIES

                                    The Sound of Music                         The Sound of Music

7. Nothing with GODS , nothing with fate / Weighty affairs will just have to wait

                               Comedy Tonight          A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

8. I can see her now, Mrs Freddy Eynsford-Hill / In a wretched little FLAT above a store

                                 I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face          My Fair Lady

9. There’s a hole in the world like a big black PIT

                             No Place Like London                Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

10. Woh woh for the WINGS ( of a dove ).

                                     Wings of a Dove            Our House ( the Madness musical )

Connection:    You’d find them in a theatre

This was a very strange one. It was a one-man show in which Roy Dotrice portrayed a seventeenth century scholar or gossip called John Aubrey. Compare the cover picture with the photo of Roy Dotrice on page 12 to admire the talents of the make-up department. I remember it as being very funny and being hugely impressed by the fact that Roy Dotrice remained on stage during the interval supposedly asleep in his chair. It gave me the chance to go down to the front and have a close look at him. The programme contains an interesting piece by Sheridan Morley about the possibility of theatres having Sunday performances, which are still rare today but were illegal back then. The Pan Am ad on page 5 is quite incredibly sexist. As usual at this time the programme is full of ads for cigarettes and restaurants. I notice that trays of coffee were served in the auditorium at the interval, which reminds me how the second acts of plays in those days were often punctuated by the sounds of crockery being accidentally kicked over after being placed beneath seats.

The clues below all refer to dramatic characters called ‘John’. Can you tell me their surnames, the plays in which they appear and the authors of those plays ?

1. He describes England as ‘a precious stone, set in the silver sea’.
2. This John was a priest during the Wars of the Roses.
3. A haunting presence, abusive ex-husband of Genevieve.
4. Usually called ‘Jack’, a young eligible bachelor.
5. Bishop of Ely in a play named after a king.
6. Who says ” You can walk down any corridor in this school and you know, no one bothers you and if you want something it’s yours and no one bothers you and everyone respects you and everyone’s scared of you and who made that, I mean, I’m not boasting, but who made that happen ?”
7. “Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
   Controlment for controlment: so answer France.”    Whose words ?
8. ” Because it is my name. Because I cannot have another in my life !”      What name are we talking about ?
9. In the dramatis personae he’s described as ‘the bastard brother of Don Pedro’.
10. ‘He is prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable ( mark the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondth of an inch too wide open ), possibly a little mad.’ Who is being described in this stage direction ? ( N.B. He’s usually known as Jack rather than John.)

Scroll down for the answers.

1. This is John of Gaunt in Shakespeare’s Richard II. Surname ? Lancaster ? Plantagenet ?
2. John Hume, a minor character in Henry VI Part 2 by Shakespeare.
3. John Marduk, who may or may not be in John by Annie Baker.
4. John (Jack) Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
5. John Morton. Shakespeare again. Richard III this time.
6. John Tate in DNA by Dennis Kelly.
7. King John in King John by Shakespeare. Surname ?  A Plantagenet.
8. John Proctor in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
9. Don John in Much Ado About Nothing.
10. John (Jack) Tanner in Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman.

This show was memorable for me  because it was the first time I can recall being reduced to tears in the theatre. There have been many occasions since ( Les Miserables and Billy Elliot spring to mind ) but at that performance I was quite surprised, as a cynical teenager, to find myself sobbing in the balcony.

This may have been the last time these two theatrical knights worked together. The programme contains an interview in which they detail many of their joint performances.

I saw the show at the Apollo after its transfer from the Royal Court. The author, David Storey, seems little remembered now but was very popular at the time, his recent plays in the west End being The Contractor and The Changing Room. Director Lindsay Anderson was another man of the moment.

As was usual at the time, the programme is full of ads for cigarettes, booze and restaurants. Much more interesting to me are the ads for other shows running in the West End at the time. Val Doonican, Norman Vaughan and Moira Anderson were at the Palladium. Not my idea of a great night out. Alan Ayckbourn has to be described as ‘author of Relatively Speaking‘ to plug his new show How The Other Half Loves. I guess he was not yet the theatrical legend that he later became. Unbelievably, in 1970, the Black and White Minstrels are still at the Victoria Palace with their show that really belonged to another age.

Another difficult one. Scroll down for the answers.

According to Shakespeare, which English kings said the following ?

1.
When I was crowned I was but nine months old.

2.
Mount, mount, my soul; thy seat is up on high
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die

3.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep ? O sleep, O gentle sleep
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down.

4.
When France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.

5.
I do not ask you much;
I beg cold comfort, and you are so strait
And so ungrateful you deny me that

6.
I may perceive
These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor
This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome

7.
Would not my lords return to me again
After they heard young Arthur was alive ?

8.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

9.
I am greater than a king;
For when I was a king my flatterers
Were then but subjects; being now a subject
I have a king here to my flatterer

10.
Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son ?
‘Tis full three months since I did see him last
If any plague hang over us, ’tis he.

11.
Say, is my kingdom lost ? Why, ’twas my care.

12.
I am determined to prove a villain.

13.
My brother slew no man; his fault was thought
And yet his punishment was bitter death
Who sued to me for him ?

14.      ( One king addressing another )
Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born
To signify thou cam’st to bite the world.

15.
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And, if I die, no soul will pity me.

1.          Henry VI
2.          Richard II
3.          Henry IV
4.          Henry V
5.          John
6.          Henry VIII
7.          John
8.          Henry V
9.          Richard II
10.          Henry IV
11.          Richard II
12.          Richard III
13.          Edward IV ( who appears in Shakespeare’s Henry VI )
14.          Henry VI
15.          Richard III