Wendy Wearne and Jenny Harrison are among those rehearsing for Yellow Point Drama Group’s production of Don’t Shoot! We’re British. The show’s run is limited to five nights at Cedar Hall. Reserved tickets are recommended.
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By Allison Vail - Ladysmith Chronicle
Published: October 06, 2008 5:00 PM
I’m a lumber jack and I’m OK.
There is no guarantee that the YellowPoint Drama Group will be performing that particular tribute during Don’t Shoot! We’re British, their latest theatrical production.
But there will be plenty of Monty Python sketches, along with a Fawlty Towers episode, The Goon Show performance, a bit of Beyond the Fringe, a Noel Coward song and more. Oh, and a filmed parody of the much loved British television show Coronation Street.
Brian March, the director and producer of the show, said the group wanted to do something simpler and lighter than their spring show, which the group ended up spending seven months on.
It Had to Be You was the group’s entry to the Mainstage Festival in Nanaimo, so it was worked on for quite awhile.
March said going into fall the group had used up a lot of time and energy.
So they took a trip back to the glory decades of British humour. March pulled sketches from the 1950s to ‘70s.
“We’re focussing strictly on British,” March said.
March said the Noel Coward performance is probably the furthest back the group is going into.
He described Coward as a playwright and composer from the 1920s to ‘50s, known for his comedic songs.
About 12 actors, doing double duty, plan to pull of the show.
March said Fawlty Towers, written by John Cleese and his wife at the time, has a huge following, even though it only had 12 episodes.
British humour from the time period that Don’t Shoot! We’re British pulls from was ground breaking.
March said there were these people coming out of Oxford and Cambridge with this weird sensibility about comedy.
He said groups like Monty Python aimed at topics the rest of the world shied away from, like politicians.
“It was very intelligent stuff too,” March said, adding Monty Python was silly but had a quality not seen before.
Previously, the humour was more slap stick and visual, according to March.
He remembers watching it growing up and thinking he had never seen anything like it.
“It drew a wide following of people,” March said.
“For me its just been like going back to my high school days,” March said about planning the show.
