given La Rue's slightly risqué reputation, there probably weren't many children there, which made it more likely I would be chosen. (But then I must have been one of the few children who was allowed to stay up to watch Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii!)
Judging by a contemporary review of the show by J.C. Trewin in the Birmingham Daily Post, I was right about the number of children likely to have been there.
I came across it via the British Newspaper Archive, to which I have just subscribed.
After referring to "a number of jokes in various shades of blue," Trewin wrote:
I daresay the average child will be too absorbed in the spectacle and in trying to make sense of the narrative, to bother a great deal about the incomprehensible jests aimed over his head. Still, to be on the safe side, don't mistake this for a routine Christmas show.
But he did note
a pleasantly warm-hearted moment when he invites half a dozen boys and girls on to the stage to sing with him.
Oh, and though his Twitter account seems to have disappeared recently, I did learn from the novelist Jonathan Coe that he was also allowed to stay up to watch Up Pompeii!
No comments:
Post a Comment