I love hearing and reading well-written reviews. Please do let me have them. I will even share
them if they are critical. Here’s a
lovely one from George who was at Malpas last weekend.
‘Good to see Mr Alexander again at Malpas on Sunday. I really
liked the new tall hat and greatcoat in the opening scene, overtones of
"Steam Punk" I thought. A great show as usual of course but Mr A.
suffering a little from wind and unpredictable children. Wind yes, but not the after
effects of some Indian takeaway but a hot afternoon with the warm wind gusting
a little from the south. If juggling an umbrella, ball and a feather duster
wasn't difficult enough, factor in the variable wind gusting across the stage,
I have to take my hat off to him. And yes the unpredictability of children too.
Mr Alexander moved on to his finger guillotine illusion and his initially
enthusiastic participant, a young lad called Charlie was becoming less so by
the minute at the thought of losing one of his fingers, the build up to the
climax was pure magic as usual but by the time a little girl had been briefed
on her role as finger catcher complete with huge red rubber gloves poor Charlie
was convinced the little guillotine was about to slice off his finger and so at
the 11th hour, 59th minute and 59th second Charlie simply withdrew his finger
from the device! A new boy stepped in and the guillotine was triggered,
everybody sighed with relief as the blade some how appeared to but didn't
remove the boys finger. I really enjoyed the show, some new material and
scenarios, new atmospheric back ground music, excellent!’
Oh dear poor Charlie.
(Actually I think it was Corrie but I had to ask his name a couple of
times.)
There have been a few ‘Charlies’ in the history of my
presentation of this routine, and a few who have copped out at the very last
minute. By far the worst several years
ago now was the one who wet himself in fear half way through the routine. I
often worry about that little boy, now a young adult nursing an abject fear and
anger directed towards all live performers and me in particular. Perhaps one
day I shall be on top of the chairs and there he will be raising his sights on
me…
It is part of the whole process of choosing the right
child. Too blasé and confident and the
effect loses vulnerability and tension. Too nervous and the audience and the
child become worried, too worried. It
ties neatly and beautifully into the ‘Benign..violation’ theory of comedy which
was explained and demonstrated in the recent Horizon on Comedy hosted by Jimmy
Carr (and really well worth a look, despite some slightly simplistic pseudo
science from time to time). Pick the right boy (somehow never works quite as
well with a girl – any clues as to why?) and the knife-edge balance of hopeful
and assumed benignity and possible dreadful violation produces huge laughter
reaction in the audience. The sharper I
can hone that knife edge in the process the better but it does risk the kind of last-minute
cop out described above.
I haven’t done that routine so much this year. It was lovely to
meet up with it again. Like Ken Dodd’s
jokes, my routines are my best friends and it’s great to meet and re-meet them
again, sometimes after some years of hiding in some case or box in bowels of my
trailer.
There have been a few of those revivals this year and the third
show of the day has become their home. Another such was the Zombie routine. But more about that another time.
Meanwhile all the best from a very autumnal road near you,
Mr Alexander
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