Christmas Shopping In Luton

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Gary Johnson
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Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Dec 12, 2013 5:37 pm

All of the available Secret Policeman's Balls have been released on a 3 disc DVD set some time ago. I picked one up for my nephew as a gift (he does not follow me around the Web - especially to this site - so this secret is still safe) and as is my want at this time of year, I got a copy for myself. In previous decades I have owned the records and the VHS tapes of the Balls so I may as well continue to relive my youthful memories transferred over to DVD.

These play just as I remember them. The cream of British humor during the television era. One can trace the change in humor Across The Pond through these shows as the literate, irreverent college educated sketch artists of the Fifties and Sixties were slowly tossed aside during the Eighties for......conventional stand-up. Cleese talks about this on one of the extras in which he states that it was increasingly hard for a sketch group to follow a popular and well devised stand-up routine.
I believe the old guy is balmy....
There is absolutely no comparison between a man dressed as the Pope haranguing Michelangelo over painting three Christs and a kangaroo in "The Last Supper" and Alexei 'F**kin' Sayle spewing on about why his head is shaved. That's just crazy talk!

But comedy was also altering big time here in the US of A so I'm rather lenient towards comics standing beside a mike trying to make us laugh.....but not when you have Cook and Cleese standing in the wings. One of the later shows even brings on Emo Phillips!!! I didn't know he was English. You can have him. I would like some Brit to explain to me the fascination your country had with those damn puppets! They get to be the opening act on at least two of the 80's shows. I've despised puppets ever since the days of Kukla, Fran & Ollie. The Muppets were enough of a cultural embarrassment as it was, did we really need competition? And then there is the music. It first started as a short respite from the comedy. Then it grew more intrusive in later years.
Say, why is Rowan Atkinson performing comedy in the middle of a Live Aid concert?? Get him off! I wanna hear Sting.
But not all of the later Balls were terrible. I was genuinely surprised with the last Ball that was recorded for prosperity, the 1989 verson. They cut way back on the Rockers and brought back the Old Comedy Guard along with the new - Jennifer Saunders co-directs with Cleese. It's very entertaining throughout starting with a great twist on the opening skit, The Dead Parrot.

But when one speaks pure entertainment it is the early shows that one first thinks of. My favorite has always been the first - Pleasure At Her Majesty's. Everyone who's anyone shows up (besides Idle and Dudley Moore). The behind the scenes footage of these actors fraternizing with each other is fascinating. Some are old comrades while others are meeting their idols for the first time. Terry Jones and Alan Bennett are eavesdropped having an intimate conversation on the comedic differences between Python and the Fringe. Bennett confesses that he could never work with John Cleese because their comedic styles differ so. I kept waiting for Jones to blurt out, "Yes, he is quite a handful". In fact, it's funny hearing comments from many of the comedians expressing amazement over Python's massive popularity at that time.
Though it is essentially a documentary enough footage is devoted to the performances to get a real taste of what went on at those late night showings. But more times than not the longer sketches get cut away from (because of time limitations, I assume).The discs do feature extras of a few new skits from each of the shows but I was hoping the DVD would release the Elongated Director's Cut - featuring newly unearthed footage of filmed performances. In much the same way that the director of WOODSTOCK has released longer and longer yet versions of his film every 5 years. No such luck here.

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Richard M Roberts » Thu Dec 12, 2013 8:23 pm

The Amnesty International Events were indeed terrific, and the 1976 one was the most historic with all the Cambridge and Oxford Comics working together. Did the surviving film materials improve at all? I remember when PLEASURES AT HER MAJESTY first came out from Rhino Video years ago, they only had black and white rough cuts on the backstage stuff as the original negative had been eviscerated with just the concert footage remaining for the American Theatrical release titled MONTY PYTHON MEETS BEYOND THE FRINGE, and apparently all they could find for the video release was a worn 35mm projection print of that which they combined with the black and white concert footage.

Ironically, I had recorded the audio of PLEASURES AT HER MAJESTY when it first broadcast on PBS in 1976, and indeed then cut it together with the concert album, A POKE IN THE EYE WITH A SHARP STICK, which did indeed have bits not featured in HER MAJESTYS to make a more complete version of the concert. I still have that tape around here somewhere.

Did they film the next years show MERMAID FROLICS, which the concert album is only one disc half comedy and half music? I’ve never seen any footage of that one and there more great Cleese and Peter Cook stuff on that one.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Gary Johnson
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Re: Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Dec 12, 2013 10:17 pm

PLEASURE AT HER MAJESTY'S is indeed in color - both backstage and on stage. I don't recall ever seeing a version of this only in B&W. There is some B&W footage in it though. Opening night is shot without color. We see Palin entering backstage and chatting briefly with Cook as he tries to find his dressing table. We then cut back to color for the opening act -- Palin again as he sweeps up his pet store on stage and gives late comers a hard time as they take their seats - all the while Michael checks his watch and glares back at the audience.
I never thought anything of it when I watched it. I just assumed it was the filmmakers prerogative to switch to B&W briefly. As for the film quality, it plays exactly as it originally aired - only now it has acquired 40 years worth of scratches and pops. This is definitely a worn print but for me that exudes some of it's qualities of being an antiquity of it's time. This was gonzo film-making - grabbing shots on the fly. If you recall, all of the performance footage suffered from very low lighting. Cleese enters onstage from the shadows and the audience sees him and starts applauding long before he comes into focus on film. This was a very low budget film shoot. For The Secret Policeman's Ball the producer makes a point of emphasizing that a professional film crew was hired to document the 1979 show.

I should have known that Richard has the album of A POKE IN THE EYE. Supposedly a CD was released in Britain only but I haven't had any luck searching online. THE MERMAID FOLLIES was originally shown as a TV special overseas (come to think of it...most of the Balls were shown that way), and a copy of that broadcast is indeed a rarity.
Maybe we can enlist Dave G. to roam the back alleys and headshops of the SoHo area and find us a bootleg of it.

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Re: Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Jim Roots » Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:11 am

Is this set captioned?

Jim
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Richard M Roberts
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Re: Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Richard M Roberts » Fri Dec 13, 2013 10:49 pm

Jim Roots wrote:Is this set captioned?

Jim



Apparently not, and looking at the Amazon listing, apparently not even the complete original issued film versions of the Concerts. Couldn't Shout Factory clear the Billy Connolly appearances? His version of Rolf Harris's "Two Little Boys in Blue" at the SECRET POLICEMANS BALL was one of my favorite of his bits.


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Gary Johnson
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Re: Christmas Shopping In Luton

Postby Gary Johnson » Sat Dec 14, 2013 2:55 pm

Good catch Richard.
Connolly is still listed in the end credits but both of his routines were cut for this version.
I cruised around online and many eagle-eyed reviewers pointed it out but no knew a real reason for the exclusion.


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