May 10, 2007
Something for a Friday :
In London we lived just around the corner from the Ealing Studios, home of the famous Ealing Comedies from the late 40s and early 50s.
On Friday nights they turned one of the sound stages into a little comedy club, called Ealing Live.
It was a bit all over the show. Some of the people and characters were brilliant, some were just embarrassing. I found this review of one of their shows on Google, and it gives a good flavour.
(unfortunately it looks like this show is now defunct, replaced with something that sounds much more respectable, oh well!)
Anyway, there is a small point to this story …
By far the funniest performance we saw there was a guy whose character was an Austrian interpretive mime artist, Johann Lippowitz. It was really simple, but clever. And hilarious.
Here is a taste.
Then, the other day I was sent this clip from YouTube and realise that from those humble beginnings he has gone on and made it big. Good for him!
From the 2006 Secret Policeman’s Ball for Amnesty International:
More here and here:
(this one might have actually been filmed at Ealing Live?)
He even has his own page on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Armand
Or, perhaps you just had to be there?