When puppetry was purgatory
QUESTION Some time ago, a play was shown on TV about a family spending Christmas together, and every year one of them, played by Geoffrey Palmer, put on a puppet show which no one wanted to watch. It was hilarious. What was it?
THIS was a TV film based on Alan Ayckbourn’s classic farce Season’s Greetings (which premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 1980).
In the TV version, Geoffrey Palmer played the role of Bernard, the irritating uncle who performed the string puppet show. It was first broadcast on December 24, 1986.
Season’s Greetings takes place at the home of Neville (Nicky Henson) and Belinda (Barbara Flynn), bored with each other after eight- and- a- half years of marriage. Neville is a successful retailer who spends most of his time with his pal, Eddie (Michael Cashman), who is married to Pattie (Lesley Dunlop), who is pregnant again and not very happy about it.
Both couples have children who, although being the supposed beneficiaries of the Christmas entertainments, are never seen.
Also visiting are the hopeless doctor, Bernard, and his tipsy wife Phyllis (Bridget Turner) and the unpleasant Uncle Harvey (Peter Vaughan, reprising his theatre role), a security expert partial to violent TV shows (‘You just missed a damn fine shark fight, you lot’).
Finally there is Rachel (Anna Massey), a sensitive, repressed virgin at 38. She has invited Clive (Shaun Scott), a youngish novelist, as her guest for the occasion, and he becomes the plot catalyst as Rachel, Belinda and Phyllis vie for his attention.
A key scene is Bernard preparing his annual puppet show, The Three Little Pigs, that invariably leaves both children and adults monumentally bored.
It was staged in a new production at the National Theatre in 2010 starring Catherine Tate, Katherine Parkinson and David Troughton. Mark Gatiss played Bernard. I was lucky enough to attend this production and it’s the funniest show I’ve seen on stage, especially the puppet scene with Mark Gatiss and David Troughton — which had the audience in stitches.
David Maskell, Cambridge.
QUESTION The Halls Of Montezuma, a 1950 film about U.S. Marines, features our National Anthem. Why?
THE film The Halls Of Montezuma was made in 1950 as a celebration of the contribution made by the U.S. Marine Corps to winning World War II, in the Pacific theatre in particular. The title of the film is taken from the Marine Corps Hymn.
The film’s plot tells of a tough mission to capture a Japanese-held island. It starred Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Jack Palance and Richard Boone.
One of the pieces of music featured in the film is the hymn My Country Tis Of Thee, also known as America, a U.S. hymn sung to the tune of God Save The Queen (or King as it was in 1950).
The first couple of verses go: My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From ev’ry mountainside Let freedom ring My native country, thee, Land of the noble free, Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills; My heart with rapture thrills, Like that above.
This four-verse hymn was written in 1831 by Samuel Francis Smith, a student at Andover Theological Seminary, Massachusetts. He based the music on an extract from Muzio Clementi’s Symphony No 3.
A friend, Lowell Mason, asked Smith to translate words from a German songbook for use as a hymn but, rather than translating the lyrics, Smith wrote an American version, allegedly in less than 30 minutes.
Given the patriotic nature of the hymn, it must be assumed that Smith didn’t know the true origin of the tune he chose to use. The song became one of the de facto national anthems of the U.S. until 1931 when The Star Spangled Banner was formally adopted. A further nine verses were added later.
The tune used for the British National Anthem predates the work of Muzio Clementi, having been published in the Thesaurus Musicus in 1744 and then in The Gentleman’s Magazine on October 15, 1745.
It may date back to a tune written by John Bull in 1615 or to an even earlier work. Both Purcell and Handel had used similar refrains in their work and it has even been suggested that it originated from an old Scots carol, Remember Oh Thou Man.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
QUESTION I’ve seen a 1919 poster advertising the fact that one could travel on the London Undergound District Line as far as Southend-on-Sea. What route did it take and where did it stop?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, while the original service may have closed in 1939, I can confirm that a through booking from a London Underground station to Southend was possible until the Seventies.
After the day’s work as a trainee mechanic was over, following a bath and change of clothes, it was possible to book a day return ticket from Kingsbury station to Southend for the princely sum of ten shillings (50p)
Peter Williams, Hayes End, Middx.
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