Pogues Rehearsals

[Gurrier]

I was just talking to a mate and he was saying that a mate of his has been rehearsing for a major musical production from 10am - 7pm seven days a week for the past two weeks.

It got me curious as to what was/is The Pogues rehearsal regime and schedule?

[SSSSpider Stacy]

I think Phil gave a pretty definative answer to this elsewhere

[philipchevron]

I think Phil gave a pretty definative answer to this elsewhere

I'm not so sure I did, but let's take it as read that I did. I have learned that when I see the words "major musical production" they are so often euphemisms for one of the more recent Andrew-Lord-Wobbly turkeys that I can only shake my head in sorrow that they require such major musical production - it must be to compensate for the lack of substance. The one about Football in War Torn Northern Ireland, the one about Child Abuse and Fire and Brimstone in the Southern States, the one about the disappearing Scenery design, the one about a formerly prolific theatre composer so disabused about the state of British "formula" theatre that, now turned Theatre Producer, you stand a good chance of getting a job in his new revival of "Tiggly Wiggly Shoots Nazis, loves Nuns, sings beauty music to Earth, Earth responds to love" [relax, this title really is so close to the Chinese translation of The Sound Of Music that we need not bother ourselves with the bits I have made up] always providing the auditionee sounds exactly like the sort of corporate homogenised mush West End singers are now routinely called upon to deliver in the British "formula" theatre designed, over a 40 year period, by Andrew Trout Mudslinger.

The Pogues, by contrast, having not the slightest interest in "major musical production" that does no more than meet the most base standards of Prog-Rock, prefer to remind each other of the songs, whine about the microphones and then quickly go home to good food and, if time later permits, a Good Win on the Bingo. Well, it hasn't won us any Tony Awards yet, but at least we have been spared a public insult in a London restaurant by the great Stephen Sondheim.

[Christine]

The Pogues, by contrast, having not the slightest interest in "major musical production"

How disappointing, Philip, I was SOOOO looking forward to "Pogues - the Musical".
If the good Lord Webber could not have put a helicopter on stage for you, then at least I can visualise a ginormous ship with thousands of sailors.

[philipchevron]

The Pogues, by contrast, having not the slightest interest in "major musical production"

How disappointing, Philip, I was SOOOO looking forward to "Pogues - the Musical".
If the good Lord Webber could not have put a helicopter on stage for you, then at least I can visualise a ginormous ship with thousands of sailors.

While a musical cannot entirely be ruled out, and why indeed, should it be, collaboration with Lord Wartington Maryladiva certainly can. His is a small talent, from the considerable proceeds of which he buys wine and horses and paintings, not to drink, or enjoy. or marvel at, but to sell on. This is not a man with a happy life.

It was, as you well know, Christine, and as your careful wording confirms, The Laird Brun MacTinkleTosh O' the Cairns who made the helicopter for the 1975 Escape from Saigon which took place nightly on stages all over the world for some years. On one unfortunate occasion, I had the very seat in the Broadway Theatre, New York from which the precise mechanics of the chopper, hoisted onto the lighting bars for most of the show, revealed it to be a pretty crap piece of tin. A very small piece of tin, moreover.

I know an SFX when I see one. I've watched from the back-auditorium lounge at the New Amsterdam during The Lion King procession which opens that show, and failed not to be moved by the astonished and beguiled look in the audience's faces as the Elephant and chums move on down the Aisle Of Life. I've seen close-to the enormous amount of people-consuming storage-space the elephant "skin" then occupies in the wings, in its full glory, for the next 24 hours because, well because if you fuck up this elephant, you fuck up this show. I like to think Olive Thomas [the New Amsterdam's theatre ghost, one of the most famous in the world] has a nap there occasionally, just to restore the social order a little.

[Gurrier]

I'd like to hear a bit more about this Olive Thomas character

I got dared to stay in the empty third story of the pub that's claimed to be the oldest pub in Australia (built in 1815) this weekend, The Macquarie Arms in Windsor. There's a resident, well former resident there named Mary who is alleged to be a little girl that perished there in a fire. The former landlord's little boy spoke all the time of how he played with this little girl that lived in the hotel. He even spoke of strange people sticking their heads through walls and watching him while he slept. There's still shackles down in what is now the keg room from when they used to chain convicts up there. My mate does the sound for the pub so he's got the keys to it all. He's even bringing along all his handy dandy recording equipment and we're gonna try and get some EVA's (Electronic Voice Anomalies) and isolate the white noise from recordings to see what we can get.

This great old pub can safely claim the title of "oldest Pub In Australia" (mainland that is). Built in 1815 by Richard Fitzgerald; whilst under instruction by Governor Lauchlan Macquarie. Macquarie discovered and settled the Hawkesbury region as the third oldest settlement in Australia behind Botany Bay and Parramatta.

The Hotel's heritage and history tells us of times when the 73rd Regiment Red Coat Soldiers occupied the upper floor while the convicts were chained up in the cellar areas after spending long hours building this wonderful establishment by hand.

The convicts soon found a way to entertain themselves by smuggling barrels of illegal rum from the Hawkesbury River into the quarters below through the "Rum Smugglers Tunnels".

Richard & Fitzpatrick (two convict brothers) weren't so lucky in their pursuit of the liquid gold when they blew themselves up from chemicals mixed wrongly, consequently died in the cellar.

Some experts say you can still find their spirits occupying the same cellar area today as when they lived there.

Likewise you may also find evidence of another Macquarie Arms resident who passed on inside our fine establishment. That of Seven year old Mary who Is said to have lived in the main bedroom of the second floor of the hotel's accommodation.

Tragically Mary died when she was unable to escape a fire that trapped her in the bedroom she once occupied.

http://www.macquariearms.com.au

http://www.paranormalaustralia.com/phot ... uarie.html

http://www.hawkesburyhistory.org.au/stubbs/tunnel.html

[philipchevron]

I'd like to hear a bit more about this Olive Thomas character

When they lovingly restored the New Amsterdam 10 years ago after 70-so years as an envionmental disaster waiting to happen, the importance of the place as Broadway's most exquisite theatres was slightly undermined for most people by its sheer lack of intimate history on itself. The Restoration may have been, and was, greeted with joy and happiness by people like me wiith no sense of perspective whatsoever, but most people require a bit more than that when you sre inviting them to share your enthusiasm for what was, until today, a useless, sleazy and high-maintenance piece of real estate. "Last week, they're showing porno there, this week, I should pay homage? Tchh!"

So, connections were made to gussy up the history of the New Amsterdam. For most people, the theatre building equates with several annual editions of Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies. The press agents could scarcely believe it when Doris Eaton Travis emerged. She had first appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, known colloquially in theatreland as "The Prohibition Follies" because so much of the show celebrated alcohol and lamented the imminent enforcement of the Prohibition Act. This 1919 edition was notable for many things but it was widely believed too, on the evidence we have, to have been the most lavish, financially successful and artistically pleasing of all the Ziggy shows. Miss Eaton, was aged 15 when she did 1919.

Doris, when she showed up to see the old place, turned out to be the gift which kept on giving. Not only was she engaging, personable, witty and blessed-with-total recall in a sweet litle old lady kind of way, but she had remained a hoofer all her life. Though only a few of the Ziegfeld Girls were actually hoofers, and a premium was put on tall girls with the ability to walk beautifully with 200 lb costumes on their backs, Travis nevertheless was an excellent dancer, who had made a good living as a dance teacher before she came a Rancher in 1966.

As far as know, Doris Eaton Travis and Olive Thomas had nothing much to link them except they were both, at different scales of esteem, Ziegfeld Girls, and naturally, now they'd found a live one, why not try for a dead one too? Olive Thomas wasted no time in putting herself forward but she was already a very famous theatre Ghost - every theatre supposedly has one - and though she was a major star of silent films after her Broadway days, she is now more famous as a Ziegeld Girl than as a Hollywood Babylon icon. To this day, there remain puzzling aspects of her case, not the most glaring of which is "If she died/ was mudered / committed suicide in France, why haunt a theatre in New York. I can't help but think of her as an intruder, resented by Bert Willams, Eddie Cantor, John Steele, Marilyn Miller, Fanny Brice, WC Fields and the rest. But her story is in this link to her homepage. That's right - her HOMEPAGE! Watch this gal, she's even got a MySpace page!

http://www.flapperjane.com/Olive%20Thom ... mepage.htm