Clean and Bright
| By Tony Ring, November 2007 Friday evening at the Biltmore Hotel built on the success of an experiment made at the previous convention in Hollywood with the presentation of a ‘CBE’, a ‘Clean, Bright Entertainment’, involving a considerable number of the convention attendees. Directed by Max Povrivchak, it only lacked trapeze artists (or should that be hooped rings above a swimming pool?) and performing seals to be a genuine variety performance, and your reporter understands that these ideas were amongst a number about which the hotel management entered a firm nolle prosequi. They did, however, permit the opening act, You Never Knew About Me sung by Paul Abrinko and Monika Eckfield, who were supported on guitar by Chris Morgan. This was a reprise of their world première performance during the P G Wodehouse Society (UK)'s A Week with Wodehouse gathering in July 2007, and was followed by the first entry in the Brotherly Love Sermon Challenge, written and read by Ken Clevenger. Pretty well every TWS convention has featured a skit written by David Landman and presented by the NEWTS, who this year were the convention’s host chapter. Entitled "Bertie Meets his Maker", the plot followed the convention’s ‘Divine Providence’ theme, and offered a dozen Newts the opportunity to demonstrate their thespian talents. David Nolan played a hapless Bertie, and John Kareores a somewhat bemused Jeeves, as a Heavenly Court sought to determine Bertie’s culpability in respect of a number of alleged crimes. The Clouds by Aristophanes sprang to mind as a possible inspiration for the script, which was perhaps a little too long for the programme as a whole. The second act opened with guitarist Chris Morgan accompanying himself on guitar for three songs, including two Flanders and Swann favourites, "Have Some Madeira, M’Dear" and "The First and Second Law of Thermodynamics". The second entry in the Sermon challenge was read, on behalf of its absent author Stephen Persing by Wendell Verrell, who was to prove to be the star of the entire convention. Because of the number (and in some cases, length) of offerings, the Director made a judicious decision to withdraw a couple of items from the programme, including the remaining entry in the sermon challenge, which was read on Saturday instead. Rev. Verrell is a recently retired Roman Catholic priest, whose humour and delivery skills enchanted us all. When Stephen Persing’s sermon was in due course announced to be the winner, judged on the relative level of applause, not a few of those present felt the award owed as much to Wendell’s delivery as to superiority of text, for all three seemed to be of a similarly high standard. Another reprise from A Week with Wodehouse came from Tamaki Morimura, who again drew tremendous applause for her own interpretation of "Bill". The Anglers’ Rest chapter from Seattle gave a reading of the Mulliner story "Came the Dawn" before the second act closed with a commercial for the new publication The Wit and Wisdom of P G Wodehouse. Tony Ring had persuaded Elizabeth Landman to play a few bars of "Sonny Boy" on keyboard to introduce a quick series of Wodehouse quotations from his book, to demonstrate why it makes an ideal taster for the Wodehouse virgin, or refresher for established readers. There were more Wodehouse lyrics at the start of the third act, sung by members of New York’s Broadway Specials chapter, accompanied by Elizabeth Landman. David Rabinowicz provided "Napoleon" and "Greenwich Village"; Evelyn Herzog "Cleopatterer"; and Mary Ellen Rich "Saturday Night". Freda Kirkham gave Elizabeth a rest with the unaccompanied song "Russian Love", the lyric to which included a considerable number of words ending in ‘-ski’ or ‘-vitch’. Tim Andrew impersonated The Oldest Member to allow Masha Lebedeva to take the role of Vladimir Brusiloff in an extract from The Clicking of Cuthbert. Her prop – a black beard of which Lenin would have been proud – brought to life such phrases as “I spit me of Nastikoff” and “Nobody any good except me”. The entertainment closed with yet another song, "Rolled Into One", with Monika Eckfield deserting her former partner and joining up instead with John Graham. It was a fitting climax to the evening, which demonstrated just how much fun can be provided by enthusiastic volunteers and a variety of talents. [Tony Ring's new compendium of quotations The Wit & Wisdom of P G Wodehouse is available from all good bookstores, and probably even some bad ones.] |