Moe, Joe and Larry

[Neville Briggs]

Sounds great Marty, I'd be interested to know how it turned out. ...If you get it going..., it's a lot of work I would expect and like our friends, the stooges, probably wouldn't result in nicely polished " poetic " verse.

[Glenny Palmer]

Neville! Go to your room!! Ours was so a finely polished presentation of finely polished verse. oooh the pain. Noel even performed 'Death Of A Kelly' re old Ned's hanging. He had it all set up in silhouette for the 'swing.' We had a worrying problem in one town though as a youth had not long prior had hung himself (so sad)....I think we mighta left it out that night.
Bobby was a mad gem hunter & when we were in....Maldon???....some place with good looking rocks anyway...Bobby gathered up half a dozen of them & plonked them on top of our on stage fridge. Now Bobby's stage name for the show was 'Fred'. He got this cheeky look on his face & languidly asked...'What do think of my Fred Fridgestones?' What a Master. Gee I miss him.
Anyway....

Glenny

[Neville Briggs]

If you say so Glenny

I have this theory, based on nothing but the turgic machinations of my geriatric encephalon, that British actors are much superior to the Hollywood Yanks, mainly because the Brits develop their craft through the discipline of Shakespearean plays which require interpretation of the dialogue in verse.
I suspect that there is something in the speaking of verse ( with proper guidance ) that develops public speaking skills to a high degree of expressiveness.

The greats of British actors have all been Shakespearean. Sir Alec Guinness, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Peter O'Toole, Ian Holm ( wonderful actor who still does Shakespeare ) and many more, even some women..oops ..off to my room.

[Vic Jefferies]

Can't agree Neville. I think this is a commonly held misconception. With very few exceptions the majority of us only ever see the film work of British and American actors. Many of the British have backgrounds in theatre and appear to us to have superior speaking voices. However, many American actors also study and perform classical works upon the stage but we tend to only know them as film actors in so so films with American accents. As an example Paul Newman and his wife Joanna Woodward were devoted to live theatre and legitimate acting.
I also think the quantity of American films compared to the British output means we tend to see many more Hollywood types in mediocre films while these days (at least) British productions are fewer and perhaps concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

[Glenny Palmer]

I agree with Neville, Vic. The Brit writers are leagues ahead & in my view, they own comedy hands down. (I mean what else can you do but laugh at Brits...oowah.)

te he
Glenny

[Bob Pacey]

You are not wrong Glenny. I seen a tee shirt once with all this Australian slang on it.

The last line was Bastard -- Meaning was-- Articulate English Gentleman.


The good thing about most poms is they might whinge a bit but they all seem to have a great idea of humour.


Bob

[Glenny Palmer]

Too right Bob...and all without that contrived godforsaken canned laughter.....errrrrrr
My absolute all time yank show favourite is
'Two Men'.... soooo NOT!

[Vic Jefferies]

Believe we were talking about the relative merits of British and American actors not writers. However as the subject has arisen I prefer British writers and think in general terms their work is superior to the American product.

[Neville Briggs]

Actually Vic what I was intending to do, was argue that speaking to an audience and engaging the audience in the drama and emotion of the spoken word was a skill greatly enhanced by practicing giving expression to dialogue in verse.

I only compared UK & US actors as an example that I thought bolstered my argument.


My main objective was to encourage bush poets to see their speaking presentation skills as something very worthwhile to develop and if possible bring to a very high artistic standard. Some already have. I, sadly, have not managed it.

[Glenny Palmer]

You will Neville. I know you will.