| As the immortal Donald O’Connor says in Singing in the Rain, "Make ‘em laugh."
· Swingers (1996): This film was the subject of one of the best compliments I’ve ever heard directed towards any film. A few years ago, my friend Chris Munroe heard that I hadn’t yet seen the brilliant lounge-lizard comedy. "What the hell are you still doing here?" he demanded. "Get out of here and go see Swingers! Right now!" His endorsement was given additional heft by the fact that at that moment we were in the Big Secret Theatre on opening night of the new play Date with an Angel, Coffee with the Devil, and both of us were due on stage in five minutes.
Chris was right. Swingers is a terrific movie. (OK, you all knew that already. Still, it’s worth repeating.) Everything works – the retro swing soundtrack, the suave lounge ambience, the root-for-the-sensitive-guy plot, and the lopsided but genuine friendship vibe from the two leads. The dialogue (written by star Jon Favreau) is a treat – no matter how often the words "baby" and "money" get used, they never wear out their welcome. This is a script filled with heart, wit and genuine humour. You’ll sympathize with the heartbroken protagonist and laugh yourself off the couch at the same time. This is still Favreau’s finest hour.
As for the play Date with an Angel, Coffee with the Devil, don’t worry. I’m sure the rest of the cast got along fine without me.
· Hancock (1956-61): My first exposure to the comedy of Tony Hancock was a radio re-broadcast of "Hancock’s Half Hour" on a nostalgia program. I was hooked immediately. Playing himself as a sort of self-important grouchy buffoon, he made his on-air persona a unique creation guaranteed to appeal to fans of British comedy. The radio show made good use of the medium, filling the stories with outlandish situations that could only be imagined and never seen. (For example, cheating at a caber toss by using balsa wood cabers, building a house with an upside-down blueprint or not realizing that the new car Hancock had purchased was actually a stolen fire engine.) If a script called for Hancock to wind up filthy rich, homeless, engaged to be married or in prison, so be it. He’d just return to normal by the next episode – continuity be damned.
When the show moved to television in 1956, the crazier gags got turfed, but the edgy, character-driven humour remained. The talented supporting cast vanished except for the indispensable Sidney James, who, like Tony, also played a ridiculous character using his own name. James was a sort of smirking Iago to Hancock’s melancholy Othello, offering support and ridicule in equal measure, while trying to cheat Hancock out of whatever he could get. James eventually disappeared from the program as well, and the later episodes suffer badly from his absence. These days, James is best known for his appearances as a cackling old lothario in the Carry On movies.
A number of the black-and-white TV episodes got released to video, and they make an excellent introduction to a truly talented comedian. Hancock also appeared in a movie, The Rebel (a.k.a. Call Me Genius) (1961), a reportedly hilarious satire of the art world, but sadly I have yet to find a copy on cassette or disc. |
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