TV 2014 : Some 1967 TV
This year's visit to Missing Believed Wiped found myself and parrot_knight enjoying the first and last episodes of "At Last the 1948 Show", and then two hours of "Our World", the landmark satellite link-up programme shown around the world on Sunday, 25th June, 1967.
I'm too young to be part of the first wave of Monty Python fandom - it was never really my thing - but nevertheless I thought these two shows were first class -- and I thought both stood up better than say, "Out of the Trees" shown at a previous MBW. In between the screenings an engaged and very articulate John Cleese pointed out the provenance of some of the sketches - Graham Chapman's spectacular solo wrestling display had been perfected over the years since it had been first used in the Cambridge footlights. It was particularly gratifying to see John Cleese corpsing on screen in 1967 as he assaults Tim Brooke Taylor in a phone box, and then on stage in 2014 as he remembered a farmyard impressions routine by Tony Buffery performed nearly fifty years ago.
"Our World" was fascinating, Cliff Michelmore delivering Anthony Jay's linking script with the authority of an Old Testament prophet. Beginning a bit like a souped up version of "Tomorrow's World" or "Blue Peter" (here's a hydroponics farm in Tokyo, here's the tram station in Melbourne, here's a bird's eye view of traffic in Paris) the programme hit its stride particularly in the arts segments, where we learned how close Wolfgang Wagner would get to Heather Harper during rehearsals for Lohengrin in Bayreuth (and how important the smoking break is for the orchestra and chorus.) The piano double of Leonard Bernstein, cigarette permanently in mouth, no ashtray visible, accompanying Van Cliburn in a Lincoln Center reheasal room was also something to cherish. Best of all perhaps was Franco Zeffirelli, hamming it up, blocking a sequence on location for Romeo and Juliet ; the most experienced actor on set (Milo O'Shea, much later to be Chief Justice Ashland in The West Wing) has an air of cheerful resignation. He knows who the star of this particular scene is.
I'm too young to be part of the first wave of Monty Python fandom - it was never really my thing - but nevertheless I thought these two shows were first class -- and I thought both stood up better than say, "Out of the Trees" shown at a previous MBW. In between the screenings an engaged and very articulate John Cleese pointed out the provenance of some of the sketches - Graham Chapman's spectacular solo wrestling display had been perfected over the years since it had been first used in the Cambridge footlights. It was particularly gratifying to see John Cleese corpsing on screen in 1967 as he assaults Tim Brooke Taylor in a phone box, and then on stage in 2014 as he remembered a farmyard impressions routine by Tony Buffery performed nearly fifty years ago.
"Our World" was fascinating, Cliff Michelmore delivering Anthony Jay's linking script with the authority of an Old Testament prophet. Beginning a bit like a souped up version of "Tomorrow's World" or "Blue Peter" (here's a hydroponics farm in Tokyo, here's the tram station in Melbourne, here's a bird's eye view of traffic in Paris) the programme hit its stride particularly in the arts segments, where we learned how close Wolfgang Wagner would get to Heather Harper during rehearsals for Lohengrin in Bayreuth (and how important the smoking break is for the orchestra and chorus.) The piano double of Leonard Bernstein, cigarette permanently in mouth, no ashtray visible, accompanying Van Cliburn in a Lincoln Center reheasal room was also something to cherish. Best of all perhaps was Franco Zeffirelli, hamming it up, blocking a sequence on location for Romeo and Juliet ; the most experienced actor on set (Milo O'Shea, much later to be Chief Justice Ashland in The West Wing) has an air of cheerful resignation. He knows who the star of this particular scene is.