Wednesday 4 January 2012

As you like it!

Trinny
In Bill Shakespeare's As you like it,  there is the line "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players."  In pantomime lore, the two Ugly Sisters in Cinderella share a taste for garish clothes and a love of the high life. A production of Cinderella, playing at Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, has attracted a complaint after naming the sisters after the Duke of York’s daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.


Susannah




Writing in the Kentish Gazette, Bob Britnell, a senior planning officer at Canterbury City Council, said: 'Looking at their photos, they don't seem ugly, just two pretty, ordinary girls who get on with their lives without courting celebrity, so why mock them."

Sorry Bob, but you should have gone to Specsavers!

Mr Britnell, said he would not be going to see Cinderella at the Marlowe Theatre because of the 'cheap joke'. I can also  assure Bob that keeping these two girls is not at all cheap and the royal wedding where they were photographed was certainly no joke to the tax payer.

Paul Hendy the producer said "Mr Britnell had been 'misinformed' and it was a pity he's written to complain without actually seeing the production. The 'sisters' are indeed called Beatrice and Eugenie but the term 'ugly sisters' is never actually used in relation to the names and we never refer to the royal family at any point. In our production, our 'sisters' wear fantastically outrageous and lavish costumes and the joke is more of a reference to the self-confessed unusual fashion sense of the sisters' royal namesakes."

Princess Britney and Princess Madona


Hendy continued "In pantomime, there is a long tradition of using the names of famous people who have been in the public eye that year. In our past productions, the sisters have been called 'Britney and Madonna' and 'Trinny and Susannah. I firmly believe that pantomime should have a slightly satirical edge and gently poke fun at the great and the good. It is the broad range of humour that makes pantomime so uniquely British."

There are eighteen boats named Beatrice, two named Eugenie but no boats called Ugly Sisters on Jim Sheads Web Site.

Funny Facts:
Hello hello hello, or should that be ello ello? You would have thought that the best place to keep goods safe from thieves would be in the hands of the police. In recently released facts. Its reported that handcuffs, uniforms, speed guns, dogs and even patrol cars have been stolen from police stations in the past five years. The haul also includes dozens of warrant cards, several bikes, riot shields, a red "door whammer", a battering ram used by officers for breaking into houses and breathalysers.

Its to be hoped the toilet bowl is still in there, otherwise as they say "The police would have nothing to go on!"

Later.....


2 comments:

  1. There was a report released yesterday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16383538) revealing the number of serving police officers with criminal convictions. Do you think that and your story are related?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello John.

    That's an interesting conundrum and one to explore over a few pints of the foaming fluid. We have had a few in blue within the family. (down from 4 to 1) Mags was in the local murder squad for a few years.

    I must admit I was surprised at the number who have, for whatever reason "gone over to the dark side".

    You learn something new everyday.

    Regards

    Mick n Mags.

    ReplyDelete

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