|
|
|
|
|
Radio favourite treading the boards I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue Wolverhampton Grand **** THE charm of I'm Sorry I Haven't a
Clue, or ISIHAC, as aficionados would have it, is that it is silly,
gloriously, irreverently silly, worthy of an arts council grant for
silliness. It was born 38 years ago, fathered by
ex-Goodie Graeme Garden and has has continued along it's anarchic way
ever since. The result is a creation which is very British in
the tradition of radio programmes that the bosses at the BBC probably
either didn't hear or if they did, didn't understand. The likes of
The Goons, Beyond our Ken and its lovechild Round the Horne
and I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.
It has also escaped the BBC obsession with dumbing down, introducing yoof (three panelists have had their bus passes some considerable time), or chucking Z-list celebrities in to appeal to the masses.
In the stage version there is now satnav
assistance which helps . . . not a lot. Which brings us, eventually, to
the stage version of the Radio 4 show.
STEAMING AUDIENCE Producer Jon Naismith warms up the already
steaming audience with some jokes older than the show - apart from one
which will be doing the rounds of pubs and clubs, factories and dole
queues as we speak - before taking the audience to Grade 8 in kazoo
playing. This is in fact the only show which gives every
member of the audience a free kazoo, which is a pity as such a gesture
would brighten up operas and musicals no end, There are so many silly games that have graced
(not really the word but there isn't anything more accurate in any known
language) the show over the years that there is a choice of 25 for the
cast to pick from for each show providing a variety which includes the
Welsh Film Club with such gems as Sodom and Glamorgan, the Uxbridge
English Dictionary - Dictionary itself being the dirty version of
Pictionary and Karaoke-Cokey when the audience get out their kazoos . .
. so to speak. The audience play a tune and the panel guess what
it is - in theory. Whiter Shade of Pale was the sticking point
here with some of the audience obviously not knowing the tune but
joining in in any case, those who did know it playing in different keys,
tempos and at different parts of the song and then there were some who
had mixed it up with Knights in White Satin. Probably the only person who recognised anything
from the din was Jeremy Hardy who proved several times during the
evening that he sings way outside the tonic sol-fa scale. In fact no
system of music yet devised can identify or categorise the sounds he
makes The audience also learned much about the history of Wolverhampton and the Grand as part of the educational element of the show with such facts as the first paper mill was built in the city - it blew away, and the fact that little Julie Andrews gave her first performance on the satge of the Grand - she was pretty awful so went into the family liver salts business instead. It was a very silly, very funny evening and, from
the age range of the packed and remarkably enthusiastic audience,
another 38 years of ISIHAC - via Mornington Crescent of course, would
seem assured.
|
|
|
|