Is It Funny?

Staggering up to the finish line just before 2021 ends is another episode of the languishing series Is It Funny? This time we turn to the Scots style icon Muriel Spark, whose books never fail to cheer me. She is both vicious and economical, as well as laugh out loud funny when she turns to the truly surreal and sublime. She also has great advice for writers, which may involve letters and cats. If all you know is Miss Jean Brodie, let me introduce you to the flashing scalpel of her mind.

I manage to get all the way through this episode referring only to 'the Scorsese show' which of course is Pretend It's A City, which is on Netflix and has the director following around his pal Fran Lebowitz and chatting with her in various places, as a follow up to his HBO documentary Public Speaking. I cogitate on what cool is and why and how Lebowitz defined a certain NYC/art world/film world cool for me as a kid in the sticks reading Interview Magazine along side my various music mags. I may or may not have invented an entirely spurious term, the 'weirdo ceiling' (cf glass) and am definitely uncool.

It's Yuletide so I'm getting medieval on you! Yes, it's the medieval Scots tale of the coal-maker who meets King Charlemagne and despite making some questionable choices due to his testy temper, things turn out pretty well. Bonus of me reading the opening lines in genuine medieval Scots (no comment on the veracity of my pronunciation though). I'm glad to share this charming Yuletide tale with you and I think you'll agree it's delightful. The Taill of Rauf Coilyear may surprise you with its appeal for modern audiences. Hmmm, maybe I should work on that screenplay...

You have probably heard of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, though odds are you know the film and not its pioneering author. Anita Loos was the first contracted female writer in Hollywood and her scripts made Douglas Fairbanks the first swashbuckling star, as well as making the Talmadge sisters the toast of the town in witty comedies. She wrote one of the first handbooks for screenwriting, too! She hung out with the luminaries of Hollywood, but also the heavyweight intellectuals of New York during the wildest times of the Prohibition era. In addition to Blondes, she of course wrote the script for The Women (1939), turned Colette's Gigi into a play that of course led to the musical film, but it was the play that made Colette's discovery -- a young Audrey Hepburn -- into a superstar.  

Today's episode focuses on the 1939 filmed based on Clare Boothe Luce's smash Broadway success, THE WOMEN. The script by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin features an all-women cast and some of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time: Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Norma Sheerer, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard and an amazing array of character actors in one of the wittiest scripts ever, directed with impeccable timing by George Cukor. I try to resist quoting all my favourite lines (because there are so many!!) and instead enthuse about why everybody needs to revel in this movie. Watch it tonight with friends!

This is the podcast what I wrote about the man who gave Ernie Wise the plays what he wrote and even wrote a book that he called The Book What I Wrote about his life as a writer of comedy for everyone from Eric Morecambe and Ern to Kenn Dodd, The Two Ronnies, Spike Milligan and more. Eddie Braben was born October 31st, 1930, so he would have been 90 this Saturday if he had held on that long. A genius behind the scenes, his praises are never sung loudly enough but I give it a go (NB: I do not literally sing this episode. Here's the Graham McCann article I mention. Here's (possibly) the funniest one liner ever. Here's poor André Preview (neé Previn) and here is Glenda Jackson as famed historical beauty Cleopatra. Here's the man himself Eddie Braben talking to Miranda Hart.

Because I can't just stop at one? Because they're so much fun? Because I can't help rhyming? Or my faulty sense of timing? The two dialogues in question from Pete & Dud are 'On Music' and 'On Sex' and are not available in recorded form which leaves some aspects a mystery only to be imagined -- which is more or less how they think about Sex. Music is a conduit to sex but also a way to conjure the imagination if you have the capability (they do not) and if you also have the title of the piece correct (this also they do not). Yes, I do at one point say Beowulf when I mean Beethoven. In my defence they begin the same way and the medieval came up a couple times in the course of discussing these dialogues so my subconscious took over. Apologies. A more exacting host than I would have re-recorded it. I am pressed for time so the handful of you who list will be asked to forgive me.

This week a deep dive into my favourite of the Dagenham Dialogues, 'At the Art Gallery' in which Pete & Dud visit the National Gallery and experience art, much to their disappointment for not only is there a lot of rubbish, but there is a lot of muck, too. Includes titbits about famous (or infamous) paintings you may know. You may be able to find the video of the original performance on a certain 'tube.

This episode mostly talks about what led up to Not Only But Also and how it became a success. Originally meant to be Not Only Dudley Moore But Also some guests like Dihanne Carroll and utility player Norm Rossington, it became also Peter Cook and then turned around to be Peter Cook but also Dudley Moore. And there was that John Lennon fellow, too. The theme song 'Goodbye-ee' was actually a hit.

We spend our lives trying to avoid boredom but isn't it true that some of the funniest moments in comedy come from boring people? Or are they really boring? What makes a boring person funny? What makes a boring person boring? What has Henri Bergson to do with all this? Warning contains: Uncle Colm, Arthur Grole, Eric Olthwaite and more boring people.  With your host Dr Kate Laity