It’s almost crazy enough to be a premise for a Monty Python sketch: John Cleese and Eric Idle, two founding members of that absurdist British comedy troupe, ad-libbing their way through an audience Q and A in a sleepy Southern town.
That town, believe it or not, is Fort Pierce and in my experience, it never stays sleepy for long. Last week, the Sunrise Theatre announced the two comic geniuses had added the Oct. 9 stop to the tour they announced in June (a tour noted in the New York Times – big news.) Tickets went on sale to the public on Tuesday, and if they’ve sold out all 1,200 by now I wouldn’t be surprised, but I’m still hopeful we’ve got a shot.
The tour, which for some reason includes mostly Florida cities, is billed as “Together Again At Last … For the Very First Time!” The “first time” reference refers to the changing improv involved with the audience participation. In truth it hasn’t even been a long time – both comedian actors voiced roles in three “Shrek” movies. And the five surviving members of the group appeared at a five-night Monty Python reunion in London last year. Most recently, Cleese and Idle gave a talk in Los Angeles together in November to promote Cleese’s memoir, “So, Anyway …”
Cleese couldn’t have been short on subject matter. The writer, actor and film producer, now 75, helped create the 1960s sketch comedy show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and appeared in the four films that followed.
Cleese went on to create and appear in the British sit-com “Fawlty Towers,” which he co-wrote and co-starred in with his then-wife, the American-born Connie Booth. He also wrote the screenplay for “A Fish Called Wanda,” in which he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and fellow Python member Michael Palin. He also acted in two James Bond movies and two Harry Potter movies, as well as in the TV show “Cheers.” He is now a visiting professor at Cornell University. (The press release also says he briefly served as defense minister under John Major; I’m watching closely to see if a media outlet picks up on that one.)
Cleese met Idle at the University of Cambridge. Idle, the youngest of the Pythons, wrote the Broadway musical “Spamalot,” and created the Rutles, a recurring skit on “Saturday Night Live” that was a take-off on the Beatles.
The Oct. 9 show at Sunrise will include clips, conversation, some of their legendary story-telling, and of course, the extended audience Q and A.
The highly respected blues guitarist Doyle Bramhall II is performing Sunday in the Studio Theater in Melbourne’s King Center. That smaller space should make for optimal viewing of Bramhall’s upside-down, left-handed playing style; his guitar is strung for a right-handed player, and he bends the strings downward instead of upward, giving his music a distinctive sound.
That sound appealed mightily to Eric Clapton, who gave Bramhall a call after the release of his second album in 1999 and made him part of his backing band. These days, Bramhall is playing some solo dates after touring this summer with Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks who opened for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Before the tour, Trucks and Bramhall took the stage at Madison Square Garden to play for Clapton’s 70th birthday.
This weekend marks the opening of the Vero Beach Theatre Guild season with the British farce (transposed to New York) “Run for your Wife.” Directed by Art Pingree, the play runs through Sept. 20.
And it’s the last week to see the exhibition of works from the permanent collection at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. It closes Sept. 20.
If it takes some advance notice to get the grandkids in town or to wedge something into your own kids’ schedule, extend an invitation now to see Riverside Theatre’s premiere of “Poodleful.”
It’s the first time (in memory anyway) that Riverside has mounted on its main stage an all-adult performance intended for a young audience. Even more significant is just how local the production is: written by Riverside’s musical director Ken Clifton and long-standing guest director D.J. Salisbury, it’s based on a children’s book written by a Vero resident. Cynthia Bardes wrote “Pansy at the Palace” when she was laid up with an injury after being hit by a car while crossing L.A.’s Wilshire Blvd.
Hopefully someone will soon write a fairy tale about the life of Cynthia Bardes.
“Poodleful,” which stars Riverside’s performance apprentices, runs Sept. 18 through 20 in Vero and Sept. 25 at the Lyric in Stuart. That, too, is a first: Riverside has never performed its works at the Lyric, a beautiful old theater that has just undergone a major renovation. It’s where the Atlantic Classical Orchestra has played for 25 years.
Later this fall, the Riverside apprentices take the show to Gainesville to perform at the Florida Theatre Conference. That’s to give other theater groups a chance to consider staging it themselves, a goal of the new Riverside Theatricals series.