Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Six: Norbulingka Palace, Barkhor & A Couple Of Dudes With Altitude In Lhasa, 12 April 2002

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Breakfast improved by some yoghurt and cheese.

Visited Norbulingka Palace in morning – both Palace and gardens more interesting and charming than advertised in the guidebook.

Went to Barkhor as the weather is so much better today – firstly to the Tibetan traditional medicinal centre…

…then 2/3 of way round circuit at Makye Amye are stunning views of Barkhor circuit.

Weird Chinese tea with spices floating in it and very tasty some duck (flat noodles in soup) with chewy yak.

Finished Barkhor circuit buying bone shoes and bone monkey.

Back to base for free afternoon which we started at the Internet café. Perhaps it was the chewy yak or maybe the depressing hotel room but we were both in a foul mood – monkey got broken in ensuing pillow fight.

Actually I attribute the dual foul mood primarily to the altitude. I subsequently learnt that tetchiness is a well-known side effect of flying into such high altitude and doing stuff without thoroughly acclimatising first.

Made up in traditional fashion and rested.

Supper at Snowland again, with fried momos, yak burger and fries, yakitori with rice. Chocolate cake takeaway was a real treat with which to celebrate our impending escape from the Lhasa Hotel.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Five: Mostly Sera & Drepung Monasteries Near Lhasa, 11 April 2002

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Another mind bogglingly awful breakfast followed by another snow flurry-ridden outing, this time to Drepung Monastery – amazing murals on the walls and surprisingly little cultural revolution damage. Large complex with many chapels and halls. Saw few monks however.

Light lunch at yeti café – yak noodle soup superb, chicken noodle soup good but fried pork in batter was a poor choice. Resolve to return tonight nonetheless.

Siesta followed by outing to Sera Monastery – we time exit perfectly with the next snow storm.

Sera is smaller but lovely – we meet more monks and almost here outdoor debate – cricket match like, everyone turns up to agree that it snowed off! Witness amazing transient art work of mandala in sand.

Second siesta followed by excellent dinner at Yeti – double cooked pork, chicken in sweet garlic sauce, excellent wok fried fresh vegetables and egg fried rice. Daisy is still suffering altitude.

For some reason I didn’t even mention our visit to the Muslim Market when I wrote up the day, but it is clear from the photo sequencing and photo journal that we made that visit that afternoon. Perhaps the altitude was getting to me when I wrote up.

Yup, the altitude got to both of us, as the next day’s log will confirm. Daisy was suffering more, with breathlessness and extreme fatigue. But both of us for sure got the tetchiness which goes along side the more physical symptoms. Goes with the turf in Tibet, that altitude problem.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Four: Potala Palace, The Jokhang & Other Touring In Lhasa, 10 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

After piss poor breakfast I cash in my dinner vouchers through Wang (George).

Ever since a particularly helpful hotel receptionist in Lebanon, named George, whenever Janie latches onto a receptionist we now privately call him, or her, George.

Set off sightseeing to Potala Palace – stunning site but mighty crowded with Tibetan and Chinese tourists. Statues of various incarnations of Buddha and various Dalai Lamas is starting to lose its appeal at a frighteningly early stage, but some rooms are stunning.

Check out food scene – decide on Snowland’s for dinner and take quick lunch at Tashi I – bobis and cheesecake.

After siesta, sleet is turning to snow but we go undaunted to The Jokhang – strangely charming in the snow but again Buddha after Buddha, lama after lama.

Snow torrential by the time we leave so we defer Barkhor Square for a better day (we hope).

More rest (and this write-up) before dinner.

Enjoyed yak momos, sha phalay (deep fried meat pie), yak and potato stew, lamb stew and tsampa. Took home a delightful butter cake and early night.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Three: Getting To Lhasa, 9 April 2002

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Rise uncomfortably early (God alone knows why) and dumped at airport circa 6:50, more than an hour before check-in for our flight even opens – Mangal has a bit to answer for here!

Fly to Lhasa…

Mount Everest seen from that flight
Tibetean Plateau as seen from above

Searched on arrival and have my copy of Seven Years In Tibet confiscated by an utterly charming but firm official.

Have no fear, I read the book anyway!

Guide Tse-Ten and driver Chum-day rescue us and take us to the so-called four star Lhasa Hotel.

We enjoyed a snack of yak burger and chips in the Hard Yak Café (very good actually) only to find that the Hard Yak is the only one of the hotel’s five restaurants that is open at present.

This, together with no central heating (broke down 2 1/2 years ago) and no hot water (breaks down at regular hours as an economy measure each day) hacks us off.

We get a new room and eventually hot water and tolerate some nasi goreng in the Hard Yak determined to change our dining arrangements for subsequent meals.

We had expected a relatively low quality of hotel, but we had not expected basic ultilities such as heating and hot water to be inadequate. We were especially frustrated by the hot watre issue, as it became very obvious very quickly that thehotel was deliberately shutting down the hot water for several hours a day to save money, but the staff consistently denied this, claiming that there were daily unfortunate breakdowns.

I even offered them money to keep the hot water service going for us, but to no avail because the staff were insistent that the problem was mechanical not economic!

Altitude makes people tetchy when they are unused to it; his additional and seemingly unfair privation certainly added to our tetchiness; especially as Janie and I are both people who also get tetchy when we are cold!

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Days One & Two: Getting There, 7 & 8 April 2002

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Nepal, Tibet & Kerala, Placeholder & Links, 7 to 27 April 2002

Leave London late in day (7 pm) – hope the non-arrival of LA Cabs is not a bad omen! Park Royal cabs get us to airport with bags of time to spare.

We do our regular airport shopping and then enjoy Qatar Airways business class hospitality before and during flights.

Daisy weiring out in Doha hospitality lounge

All flights on time and event free – arrive Kathmandu late afternoon.

In stunning Dwarika Hotel – beautiful room and grounds…

…take a 12 course Nepalese feast in the Nepalese restaurant. Superb nibbles, mushroom and spinach with the roti, mutton kebabs, shredded chicken and rice pancakes and sticky sauce fish were the highlights. The late Mr Dwarika’s Mrs made an interesting interlude between courses.

Slept very well.

Z/Yen Seasonal Dinner At The English Garden, Lincoln Street SW3, 13 December 2001

Not THAT sort of English Garden; the Richard Corrigan/Malcolm Starmer place

There was some feedback the previous year that the event in Efes, while most enjoyable, had been a step down in food quality from the previous few years. There were also mumblings about the quality of song lyrics from one or two of those who had been around long enough to remember the last time I had put pen to paper in that regard.

Thus it was Janie to the rescue, if I remember correctly, in the matter of restaurant choice. I think she might have consulted Elisabeth on the topic too. Which explains how we ended up at a place that both of them happened to want to try and which also happened to have a private room our size.

It had rave reviews, not least this one in the Guardian, lauding Richard Corrigan and his star chef Malcolm Starmer for the high quality and yet value for money this place provided. Good choice, then.

It was a “no holding back” era at Z/Yen back then – we had our last Board meeting of the year that day (quite normal) plus a staff symposium to launch the employee share ownership scheme (less usual)…

There you are…simples.

…ahead of traipsing across town “en masse” to Chelsea for the wonderful meal.

And I do recall it was a truly excellent meal. Janie and I for sure returned there with friends subsequently and were sorry to learn that the place had gone when it closed down.

I think Linda might have launched Secret Santa that year, but perhaps she launched it a year or two later. For sure there was some sort of Z/Yen gimcrack…I mean hugely valuable gift…that year, as Linda promised by e-mail that Santa would be attending.

As for the song – one of my more enduring Z/Yen seasonal hits was born that year.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF Z/YEN TRAINING
 and/or
 THE Z/EALOUS METHODOLOGY TRAINING COURSE
(Song to the Tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”)
 
On my first day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
A Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my second day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my third day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my fourth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my fifth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my sixth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my seventh day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.

 
On my eighth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Eight steps to success,
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my ninth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Nine PEST-expanded forces,
Eight steps to success,
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my tenth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Ten Vision Into Action themes,
Nine PEST-expanded forces,
Eight steps to success,
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 
On my eleventh day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Eleven: viable systems plus SWOT,
Ten Vision Into Action themes,
Nine PEST-expanded forces,
Eight steps to success,
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And a Z/Yen Z/Ealous Risk/Reward tree.
 

 
FINALE
 
On my twelfth day of training, my Z/Yen boss gave to me;
Twelve Clean Business Cuisine chapters,
Eleven: viable systems plus SWOT,
Ten Vision Into Action themes,
Nine PEST-expanded forces,
Eight steps to success,
Seven S’s model,
Six thinking hats,
Five forces.
Four risk rationalities,
Three critical sets,
Two by two grid/groups,
And
A
Z/Yen
Z/Ealous
Risk/Reward
Tree.
 

Ian Harris

Classic. The whole event. Classic.

Casablanca The Musical by Magnolia Thunderpussy (aka Mike Ward), Actor’s Workshop, 18 September 2001

Some months earlier, Mike Ward had, over dinner on one of his visits to London, raised the idea of Casablanca The Musical with me. He was working on the book and wanted me to write some silly lyrics to well known songs with him.

I quite rapidly wrote one lyric, I Only Have Heils For You…

I Only Have “Heils” For You, Casablanca the Musical, Actor’s Workshop Halifax, 27 July 2001

…which (to be fair without my having provided much context) led Janie to wonder whether I had taken leave of my senses.

In the end, I wrote a few lyrics (now all Ogblogged, between the dates 27 July and 8 August 2001), including one jointly with David Seidel, who knew a lot more about 30s and 40s music than I did, although perhaps not quite as much about the sort of silly lyrics that might work in Mike’s show.

I took the brief quite seriously considering what a silly brief it was. I remember tracking down and reading the movie script as well as Mike’s musical book to help me remember the story and think through the bits that might lend themselves best to musical interludes. The joke in the programme notes about me not having seen the book until the very last minute is…a joke.

I also wrote programme notes for that original production; a mixture of serious and silly – available here and below:

Casablanca The Musical, Timeline And Programme Notes For Original 2001 Production, Written By Yours Truly, 31 August 2001

The production was scheduled at fairly short notice for mid-September 2001. I had arranged to speak at a charity conference in Sheffield on the Monday (17th), so it seemed sensible for me to press further into Yorkshire on the Tuesday and see the show that second night, which I did.

My charity accountants conference talk is long-since forgotten, I hope. I do recall it was a double-act with Mary O’Callaghan and I expect I charitably let Mary deliver all the best jokes. You’ll simply have to imagine what those side-splitting, uproarious gags might have been and how those charity accountants must have laughed and laughed…

…but I digress.

Actually I do remember that I met a very pleasant woman from Norwood Ravenswood who connected me to their archivist who was extremely helpful in providing information on the orphaned (Krasey) side of my mother’s family…

…but that is even more of a digression.

Point is, on the Tuesday, mid to late morning, I headed north-west from Sheffield and checked in to the Imperial Crown. Janie, who had been up to the Actor’s Workshop for the Pausanias Affair earlier that summer, was unable to cancel out her work for such a one-nighter, so I braved Halifax alone on that occasion.

I don’t recall all the details of the afternoon and evening. I have a feeling that it was quite similar to my solo quick turnaround visit to see the revival in 2018; I think I went to the theatre to meet Mike. There was a sense of excitement as the show had been well previewed locally so was all-but sold out.

I’m pretty sure that Mike and I then went back to his house, where Lottie no doubt served up some splendid grub and good wine. Then we went back to the theatre to see the show.

I do remember enjoying the show. I recall the second half seeming to tail off a little – perhaps due to the book (which Mike subsequently edited for the revival to good effect I think) – more likely it is just an exhausting show for the cast. I remember that there were several girls playing the role of Ilsa, for reasons that weren’t explained in the script – I suppose Mike had written too few parts for women and wanted to give several young females a chance.

I do also recall feeling that, first time round, Ouagadougou Choo Choo had not quite been the rousing finale I had intended. That number certainly worked better (to my taste) in 2018.

In those days, The Evening Courier reviewed stuff for the Actor’s Workshop and this piece/production got a pretty darned hot review:

Tragically, the theatre was destroyed just a few week’s later, in an incident which seemed to be connected with the rioting in several Northern towns that autumn but in fact was later identified as to be youthful mischief that got seriously out of hand.

I couldn’t help wondering at the time whether my songs, in particular, Ouagadougou Choo Choo, had actually brought the house down.

Joking apart though, this show was a gargantuan effort for a tiny charitable youth theatre. But that effort was dwarfed by the efforts it must have needed to bring the Workshop back from the almost-dead after that tragic incident.

Looking back, Mike Ward just shrugs and says he can’t remember and sort-of wonders how he/they did it.

But back in September 2001, all of that was the future, while Casablanca The Musical took a highly irreverent look back at the past.

Casablanca The Musical, Timeline And Programme Notes For Original 2001 Production, Written By Yours Truly, 31 August 2001

TIMELINE: WORLD EVENTS AND CASABLANCA, THE MUSICAL

Date

Events
1899 January 23, Humphrey DeForest Bogart born, New York City, USA.

August 2, Michael Overfish Ward born, Halifax, England.
1931 Song “As Time Goes By” appears in Broadway show “Everybody’s Welcome”.  Cornell student Murray Burnett irritates his fellow students by playing it constantly.  The Great Depression has been running globally for two years.  The Nazi party is number two in the German Reichstag with over 18% of the vote.  Talking movies are four years old.
1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany in January

Mike Ward becomes Chancellor of Keighley in August
1938 Germany annexes Austria in March.  Later that year, Murray Burnett, a Jew, goes to Vienna to help relatives to escape; he is horrified by the hatred there.  Mike Ward is reported to have said “if you think Nazi Europe is horrifying, you should see Keighley”.
June 1940 Nazis take Paris and do a deal with the remnants of the French Government, much to the chagrin of the resistant French elements.  Marshal Petain becomes head of Vichy France, in collaboration with the Nazis.  General Charles DeGaulle announces plan to develop the means to liberate France from the overseas empire, primarily French Africa.
1940 Murray Burnett, in collaboration with friend Joan Alison, writes play “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” about an American expat in Casablanca whose former lover turns up at his night club with her resistance leader husband, Victor, in tow.  She asks Sam the pianist to play “As Time Goes By”.  Love with Rick is rekindled.  She wants to stay with Rick.  Rick insists that she leaves with Victor.  She goes.  The curtain falls.
1940 DeGaulle establishes his credentials in Free French Africa, successfully breaking the Vichy stranglehold in Equatorial Africa.  Strangely, the position of Ouagadougou in Upper Volta is hard to establish from the histories.  The position over North Africa, including Morocco, is ambiguous and is to remain so for several years – it’s status can be vaguely described as unoccupied by agreement with Vichy France.  For example, the British allow Vichy ships to pass through the straits of Gibraltar without interference.
1941 Murray Burnett struggles to place “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” until the US’s entry into the war towards the end of the year suddenly makes the property look hot.  Humphrey Bogart is busy making The Maltese Falcon.
December 1941/ January 1942 Irene Lee and Hal Wallis of Warner Bros buy “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” for $20,000 – then the highest ever price for an unperformed play (about £100,000 to £150,000 at today’s UK prices – why can’t Mike Ward plays raise this sort of cash?).  Warner Bros immediately change the name of the piece to Casablanca and announce that Ronald Reagan is to play Rick, Ann Sheridan is to pay Ilsa and Dennis Morgan is to play Victor.
February 1942 Julius and Phil Epstein set to work rewriting the script into a Warner Bros movie screenplay with humour and sparkle.  Wallis decides on Mick Curtiz as director and they pick Humphrey Bogart for Rick, condemning Reagan to B-movie obscurity until he uses politics to revive his flagging career.  Mike Ward also fails to get the part of Rick, condemning him to a career in public relations until the Actor’s Workshop revives his flagging career.
April 1942 Hal Wallis gets Howard Koch to do some touching up work on the script to add youthfulness and agitprop.  Could this be too many cooks?  With hindsight – clearly not.  Meanwhile the shortlist for Ilsa is now Michele Morgan or Ingrid Bergman.  Michele would cost $55,000 whereas Ingrid was available on loan from Paramount for $25,000.  Ingrid gets the job.  US government recognises Free French administration in Equatorial Africa and swaps eight bombers for landing rights.  Mike Ward swaps eight gobstoppers for some cigarette cards with famous cricketers on them (one of them of course being Len Hutton).
May 1942 Dooley Wilson is signed up for Sam.  He cannot play piano but he is cheap.  Paul Henreid signs up for Victor’s role as long as he gets third billing above the title on the posters (no joke).  Conrad Veidt signs up to play Major Strasser – Veidt was a Jewish refugee who made an acting career out of playing evil Nazis. They start filming with the Paris flashback sequence.  A few days later, Claude Rains signs up as Renault, Sidney Greenstreet as Ferrari and Peter Lorre as Ugarte.
June/July 1942 Script famously still being rewritten during filing.  Later, Jack Warner was to use Casablanca as a case study on out of control scripts – there’s no pleasing some bosses.
August 1942 August 2, Mike Ward’s birthday.  August 3, last day of official filming on Casablanca. August 21 final bit of filming (new closing line).
November 1942 Operation Torch: Allied Forces land in North Africa (Algiers, Oran and 8 points along Moroccan coast).  Fighting ends after thousands of casualties.  Admiral Darlan announces himself “High Commissioner for North and West Africa” but it is hard to work out if he is now Vichy or Free French.  North African position now tense and ambiguous rather than just ambiguous.  Movie Casablanca premiers same month – that really was amazing timing.
December 1942 Admiral Darlan assassinated before anyone could work out whose side he was on. Mike Ward flees Keighley in both confusion and diapers.
January 1943 22nd – DeGaulle, Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Morocco to try and agree a carve up but DeGaulle and Roosevelt can’t get on with each other.

23rd –  Casablanca goes on general release in US – amazing timing yet again, Mr Warner.
May 1943 Unified Free French Government formed in North Africa.
January 1944 DeGaulle and Churchill meet in Marrakech – they don’t get on too well even without Roosevelt
March 1944 Casablanca wins 3 Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay
1983 British Film Institute votes Casablanca as best film ever.
June 1998 American Film Institute rates Casablanca second greatest American film of all time (look out next for Mike Ward’s “Citizen Kane, the Musical”)
August 2001 Mike Ward begins work on “Casablanca, the Musical”
September 2001 “Casablanca, the Musical” is done and dusted.

Deal Making

MIKE WARD:           Where are the goddamn programme notes you promised me?  We need to go to print tomorrow.

AIRPIECE:                Where’s the goddamn script.  I can’t write programme notes about a musical I haven’t read.

MIKE WARD:           It’s all done.  I’ll send it to you.

AIRPIECE:                When?

MIKE WARD:           When I’ve written the ending.  It’ll be a couple of days.

AIRPIECE:                I’ll need a couple of days after that.

MIKE WARD:           It’s a deal.

Echoes

The birth of Casablanca, the Musical has many echoes with the birth of the movie.  Last minute revision to the script is but one example.  Ingrid Bergman was selected for the movie because she was cheap, a sentiment that the Burgers of Halifax would no doubt endorse.  I was selected to write these programme notes for similar reasons; Lord Archer of Bulmarsh, who has some time on his hands, was in the frame but wanted a larger fee per word than me.

Apocryphally, the ending of the movie was in doubt right until the end of filming (much like a Mike Ward play), although some experts say that it was never in doubt that Victor and Ilsa were going to end up with each other.  Spin doctoring had been invented by 1942, so you can’t treat every Warner outpouring as gospel.  After all, they announced Ronald Reagan as the lead just before signing Bogart.  It is that sort of movie.  “Play it again Sam” is the most famous quote from the movie and it is not in the movie.  “Oh shit, I’ve dropped a table on my foot” will probably be the most famous quote from the musical, although not in the script, merely irritating noise offstage.  It is said that more has been written about Casablanca than about any other movie.  (The movie even has its own web site, Cyberblanca.com, to which I owe a debt of research gratitude.)  And oh boy do Mike Ward plays have more written about them in the programme notes than most plays.  But then, I am paid by the word, you know.

Finally, while tracing these echoes, I thought I’d research what had become of Murray Burnett who wrote the play “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” upon which Casablanca is based.  It is well known that he earned $20,000 for the play.  Less well known is the fact that he scratched out a living later as a screenwriter experiencing little success.  His later stage play projects, of which there were several, were never produced.  When Murray Burnett died in September 1997, his obituary in Classic Images misspelled his name as “Murray Bennett.”  “Mike Warred”, on the other hand, seems somehow to get all of his plays produced.  But no write up in Classic Images.  And no movie rights sales as yet.  Perhaps the plays are too long.

Professor Ivan Airpiece

Department of Forensic Cinematography,

The Fulbright University College of Keighley (F.U.C.K.)

Renault And Clouseau, Lyric Co-Written With David Seidel, Casablanca the Musical, Actor’s Workshop Halifax, 8 August 2001

This is one of the numbers for show Casablanca The Musical:

Casablanca The Musical by Magnolia Thunderpussy, Actor’s Workshop, 18 September 2001

This one was more David Seidel than me. I edited David’s fine work on this one but he deserves most of the credit.

RENAULT AND CLOUSEAU VERSION 1.1

By David Seidel and Ian Harris – (based on “Five Guys Named Moe”)

 

CLOUSEAU:        Gonna tell you ‘bout our Chief of Police

RENAULT:           With a know-it-all of an accomplice

I’m Renault

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

RENAULT:           I’m in the know

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

CLOUSEAU:        I’m Clouseau

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

RENAULT:           He’s a real thick-o

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

They’re the suckers, They’re the suckers

Sucking up to Strasser!

Woe Woe Woe Woe Gestapo

 

CLOUSEAU:        He’s the greatest cop in town

Is he crooked, is he sound?

You wanna find out? Stick around

COMPANY:         Louis Renault

RENAULT:           I’ve a useless gadabout

A busybody with no clout

Gets onyer tits more than “Beadle’s About”

COMPANY:         Monsieur Clouseau

 

CLOUSEAU:        I pop out of nowhere

Interfere with everything

I’m the pest who knows what’s best

RENAULT:           At least that’s what he thinks!

 

CLOUSEAU:        His name is a brand of cars

RENAULT:          His bowels are irregular

BOTH:                   We both talk out of our arse.

COMPANY:         Like guys on blow!

 

RENAULT:           I’m Renault

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

RENAULT:           I’m in the know

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

CLOUSEAU:        I’m Clouseau

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

RENAULT:           He’s a real thick-o

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

LAZLO:                 I’m Lazlo

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

LAZLO:                 I’m Ilsa’s beau

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

WICK:                   I’m Wick – yo

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

WICK:                   I’m Ilsa’s beau

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

NAZIS:                  We’re Gestapo

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

NAZIS:                  Whaddya know?

COMPANY:         Doo dee a doo da

They’re the suckers, They’re the suckers

Clouseau and Renault!!

Here is a video of Five Guys Named Moe:

 

I Always Hurt the Ones I Con, Casablanca the Musical, Actor’s Workshop Halifax, 8 August 2001

This is one of the numbers I wrote for show Casablanca The Musical:

Casablanca The Musical by Magnolia Thunderpussy, Actor’s Workshop, 18 September 2001

Mike Ward ended up writing a lot of business for the Lou Ferrari character desperately trying to upstage everyone else and get a slot in the show for his solo. Here is the lyric.

 I ALWAYS HURT THE ONES I CON

(Song to the Tune of “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love”)

 

LUIGI FERRARI – SOLO

 

VERSE 1

 

I always hurt the ones I con,

The ones I shouldn’t shaft at all;

I always take the greenest jerks,

And fleece ’em ‘til they’ve got naff all.

I always trick the desperate souls,

With a hasty scam I can’t recall;

So if I took your shirt last night,

It’s because I stuffed you most of all.

 

VERSE 2

 

I always stiff, the refugees,

Although I shouldn’t cheat and lie;

I always dupe the feeble toads,

Who are the weakest link, goodbye.

I always make the biggest bucks,

With a hasty hoax or quick disguise;

So if I skinned your hide last night,

It’s because I’m the most evil guy.

Here is a video of Paul Anka singing You Always Hurt The One You Love:

I’ve always liked the Spike Jones version of that song. Strangely, I found a vid with George Bettinger lip-synching the Spike Jones version. Coincidentally it has the Casablanca poster as a background. How weird is that?: