![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Fry Chronicles
Dec. 25th, 2011 12:20 amне поленитесь, история роскошная
One morning in February Hugh came into A2, waving a letter.
‘You were in that film they made here, weren’t you?’ he said to me and Kim.
‘Chariots of Fire, you mean?’
‘Well they’ve got some sort of premiere at the end of March and a party at the Dorchester Hotel and they want the Footlights to be the entertainment. What do you think?’
‘It would make sense if we could actually see the film first. So we could do a sketch about it, or at least make some kind of reference?’
Hugh consulted the letter. ‘They’re suggesting we go to London on the morning of the thirtieth, go to the screening for film critics that’s taking place in the afternoon, rehearse in the hotel ballroom and then we’ll be put on after the dinner.’
The day before taking the train to London I called my mother to tell her what we were up to.
‘Oh, the Dorchester,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been to the Dorchester for years. In fact, I remember the last time clearly. Your father and I went to a ball and it broke up early because the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination came through, and nobody felt like carrying on.’
On the appointed day the core Footlights team settled down in an empty cinema for the screening of the film, quite expecting to be depressed by a low-budget British embarrassment. As we came out, I brushed a tear from my cheek and said, ‘Either I’m in a really odd mood or that was rather fantastic.’
Everybody else seemed to be in agreement.
We hastily put together an opening sketch in which we ran on to the stage in slow motion. Steve Edis, whose ear was every bit as good as Hugh’s, had absorbed Vangelis’s distinctive musical theme and reproduced it on the piano.
After hanging about for hours in a small dining area set aside for toast masters in red mess jackets and what used to be called the upper servants, we were at last on.
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the MC into his microphone, ‘they twinkled in the twenties and now they’re entertaining in the eighties. It’s the Cambridge University Footlights!’
Our slo-mo running on stage to Steve’s lusty rendition of the film score went extremely well, and from the opening explosions of laughter and applause we settled confidently into our material. At some stage however it became apparent that we were losing the audience. There was rustling, murmuring, chair scraping and whispering. Dinner-jacketed men and evening-gowned women were scampering towards the back of the ballroom and … well, quite frankly … leaving.
Surely we weren’t that bad? We had not only performed this in Cambridge but we had done evenings at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. I was prepared to believe that we might not be to everyone’s taste, but such a mass walk-out seemed like a studied insult. I caught Hugh’s eye, which held the wild, rolling look of a gazelle being pulled to earth by a leopard. I dare say my expression was much the same.
As we lumbered sweatily off stage, with Paul going forward for his monologue with the brave tread of an aristocrat approaching the guillotine, Emma whispered to us, ‘Someone’s shot Ronald Reagan!’
‘What?’
‘All the Twentieth Century Fox executives have left and gone to the phones …’
I rang my mother that night.
‘Well that’s settled then, darling,’ she said. ‘No member of this family ever goes to an event at the Dorchester again. It’s not fair on America.’
One morning in February Hugh came into A2, waving a letter.
‘You were in that film they made here, weren’t you?’ he said to me and Kim.
‘Chariots of Fire, you mean?’
‘Well they’ve got some sort of premiere at the end of March and a party at the Dorchester Hotel and they want the Footlights to be the entertainment. What do you think?’
‘It would make sense if we could actually see the film first. So we could do a sketch about it, or at least make some kind of reference?’
Hugh consulted the letter. ‘They’re suggesting we go to London on the morning of the thirtieth, go to the screening for film critics that’s taking place in the afternoon, rehearse in the hotel ballroom and then we’ll be put on after the dinner.’
The day before taking the train to London I called my mother to tell her what we were up to.
‘Oh, the Dorchester,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been to the Dorchester for years. In fact, I remember the last time clearly. Your father and I went to a ball and it broke up early because the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination came through, and nobody felt like carrying on.’
On the appointed day the core Footlights team settled down in an empty cinema for the screening of the film, quite expecting to be depressed by a low-budget British embarrassment. As we came out, I brushed a tear from my cheek and said, ‘Either I’m in a really odd mood or that was rather fantastic.’
Everybody else seemed to be in agreement.
We hastily put together an opening sketch in which we ran on to the stage in slow motion. Steve Edis, whose ear was every bit as good as Hugh’s, had absorbed Vangelis’s distinctive musical theme and reproduced it on the piano.
After hanging about for hours in a small dining area set aside for toast masters in red mess jackets and what used to be called the upper servants, we were at last on.
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the MC into his microphone, ‘they twinkled in the twenties and now they’re entertaining in the eighties. It’s the Cambridge University Footlights!’
Our slo-mo running on stage to Steve’s lusty rendition of the film score went extremely well, and from the opening explosions of laughter and applause we settled confidently into our material. At some stage however it became apparent that we were losing the audience. There was rustling, murmuring, chair scraping and whispering. Dinner-jacketed men and evening-gowned women were scampering towards the back of the ballroom and … well, quite frankly … leaving.
Surely we weren’t that bad? We had not only performed this in Cambridge but we had done evenings at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. I was prepared to believe that we might not be to everyone’s taste, but such a mass walk-out seemed like a studied insult. I caught Hugh’s eye, which held the wild, rolling look of a gazelle being pulled to earth by a leopard. I dare say my expression was much the same.
As we lumbered sweatily off stage, with Paul going forward for his monologue with the brave tread of an aristocrat approaching the guillotine, Emma whispered to us, ‘Someone’s shot Ronald Reagan!’
‘What?’
‘All the Twentieth Century Fox executives have left and gone to the phones …’
I rang my mother that night.
‘Well that’s settled then, darling,’ she said. ‘No member of this family ever goes to an event at the Dorchester again. It’s not fair on America.’
