in some git’s front room, and Act 2 in the same git’s front room, ‘several years later’. This tells you nothing, except that you have spent £50 to spend five hours looking at the same eight pieces of flyblown scenery.
4) A biography of the leading lady, who seems to have alternated her career between playing Shakespearian heroines and appearing in Crossroads.
5) A biography of the leading man, who, reading between the lines, appears to have been too pissed to work for most of his career.
6) An advert on the back for Cats.
This piece of old toot will set you back ten quid. It will take you 20 minutes to read, not because it’s interesting, because it isn’t interesting, but because the print is so small. This will however kill time during the interval. Do not under any circumstances go to the bar during the interval, even if you have ‘pre-ordered’ your drinks. There is one barman, five hundred booze-craving punters and the bar is the size of a pencil case.
The new visual format, but just as annoying as the old ones. For a start, they’re more expensive. Then half the time you’re just buying a movie you bought in 1995 on video because of the ‘improved picture quality’, which isn’t improved because the DVD manufacturer copied it off the same 1995 video.
Ah, but what about the DVD extras? Yes. What about them? DVD extras, when attached to a bad movie, are like all the trimmings to an excellent roast dinner without any actual meat. There’s the Audio Commentary, which is three actors and the director meeting up two years later and trying to think of something interesting to say about this awful film they made.
CREDITS ROLL: WE SEE A BEAUTIFUL NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNRISE
DIRECTOR’S VOICE
Ah… hi… and… ah… welcome to the audio commentary to Autumn Of My Life. I’m the director, Hal Franklin, and I’m joined by the giggly actress who played the lead, Francine Mehitabel, and a stupid young guy who played her simpleton brother, Alistair Tug.
GIGGLY ACTRESS
Hi!
STUPID YOUNG GUY
Yeah. What she said.
THE SUNRISE IS REPLACED BY A SHOT OF A RIVER
DIRECTOR
Yeah, this is, ah, the opening, ah, shot of the movie. I remember we scouted for months to find the right river. We must have been to over 40 states, and finally! we found this river right on our doorstep.
GIGGLY ACTRESS
I fell in the river!
STUPID YOUNG GUY
Yeah! That was funny!
And so on until you either run screaming from the room or rip the plug out of the machine and throw it into the street. This is the only good DVD commentary:
CREDITS ROLL: A BEAUTIFUL NEW HAMPSHIRE SUNRISE
DIRECTOR’S VOICE
Hi, and welcome to the audio commentary to Autumn Of My Life. I’m the director, Hal Franklin, and I’m joined by the film’s stars, Francine Mehitabel and Alistair Tug.
FRANCINE AND ALISTAIR
Hi!
DIRECTOR
And we’re also joined by a ravenous man-eating tiger.
TIGER
Grrr! Bite! Kill! Etc.
Much better. And that’s just Disc One.
There are five kinds of play:
1) SHAKESPEARE. Updated or traditional, Shakespeare is always done in a stupid, rhymey voice that just looks weird now. You know all the good bits already and the rest is a bit hard to understand. And no way are the comedy bits ever funny.
2) FARCE. Farce is either French, which means maids and Poirot moustaches, or English, which means vicars and double meanings. Either way, it relies completely on some tit leaving the room or hiding just as another tit comes in. No farce would ever work in a desert. ‘Hello, there’s Eric. You’ve got no trousers on, Eric.’ ‘Yes, sorry about that, I’ve been having sex with your wife.’
3) IBSEN, CHEKHOV, ETC. Oh Lord. We’re all going to die! Can we start with the people on stage first, please?
4) OSCAR WILDE. Again, you know all the jokes, the plots are unconvincing, the younger members of the cast don’t understand any of the play, and everyone just wants to hear the old theatre dame say, ‘A haaaandbag!’ in a silly voice.
5) FILMS TURNED INTO PLAYS WITH SOMEONE WHO USED TO BE IN AN AMERICAN SITCOM IN THEM. Like watching a film acted out on a stage very slowly with someone who used to be in an American sitcom shouting their heads off. Later, a middle-aged lady who was in a film once will take her top off.
Rock musicals were once very different from today’s rock musicals as they featured original songs and were like your mum’s idea of rock music, i.e. opera songs done loudly by hairy stage school students with lots of guitar solos at the wrong moment. Most, for some reason, were set in Biblical times and conspired to give the impression that Jesus was a hippy and the Disciples were drug addicts.
Now ‘rock musicals’ are something else entirely. They are made up of bits of old rock songs and plots that wouldn’t fool a kitten. Abba musicals, Madness musicals, Buddy Holly musicals, Queen musicals and even Rod Stewart musicals. Recycling proper rock songs and getting stage-school johnnies to sing them in castrated voices with good diction is hugely popular, and coachloads of people come in to hear music they loved as teenagers kicked in the arse by dancing gimps.
Soon people will only form bands so that a rock musical will be based on their songs. Soon people will only know the work of, say, Bob Dylan from the new West End show, It’s All Right Ma, I’m Only Singing And Dancing. The Sex Pistols will be commemorated by Ben Elton’s latest masterpiece, We’re So Pretty, Mister Vacant. And anyone who fancies a nostalgic evening sound-tracked by the music of Kraftwerk can go and see Autobahn! at the Leeds City Varieties, with Jane McDonald as The Model and Darren Day as Trans-Europe Express the Singing Train.
Pub. There’s a word. It’s short for ‘public house’, you know. And therein lies a clue. Pubs aren’t bars, they aren’t inns, they’re not roadhouses or gin palaces or after-hours clubs, they’re public houses. Which means that, while they are indeed open to the public and a jolly good thing too, they are also, in a way, sort of, houses. Rundown houses, admittedly, that smell of fags and have a slightly sticky carpet. Houses that might belong to someone who does drink a lot but has got it under control, but houses. Because the best pubs are a bit like a little home from home. There might be a fireplace. There will be people you know. The landlord and bar staff will make you feel like a welcome guest. If there is a jukebox, it will confine itself entirely to singles and albums you own yourself, with particular reference to records