With Jason Dedrick! It’s a Dedrick Boxing Day tradition as David’s cousin Jason pops by to celebrate with Ian and Dave. It’s the return of Eggs Dedrick with a twist of Jason; they take a look at British cooking shows and spoon sucking and things take a nasty turn; we pull out the time machine for a trip down Christmas memory lane; Dave wonders whose Christmas they celebrated – Mom or Dad’s; we hear some stories of Jason and David’s eccentric grandpa; the secret creativity of the Dedrick family; the fake financial wizardry of our parents; Spotted Dick; Nutcracker stories…also spoilers; Jason has a Christmas axe to grind; sounds like someone is going to be LEFT BEHIND; we introduce a new game: What the Heck Are They Singing? – and you can play along too! All you need is a pencil and paper and the patience of Job. And, finally, Jason ends the episode with a new Christmas carol to make Ian forget “Jingle Bell Rock”.
If you’re lucky enough to live in Vancouver, come on down to Slickety Jim’s Chat’n’Chew on January 4th at 7:00 for PODMASH, a new podcast format featuring three different podcasts discussing the same topic for twenty minutes each. This show will feature Sneaky Dragon, Dazed and Convicted and Science Us.
Thanks for listening and Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas and Feliz Natal!
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Ian, your “favourite” Nutcracker story is being fired from “Nutcracker’d”?! (Yeah, that was the official spelling. Let’s blame the 90s.) The way the second act was supposed to go was: scripted top and tail and in the middle, a “Harold” (improv collage) based on audience input that was thematically-related to the plot. (Harolds were a big thing in improv then.) Instead, the director just ended Act One at an earlier point and made Act Two longer! No improv at all. *sigh* BTW, my favourite part of the show was the musical number “I’ll Be Back For Christmas” sung by Gerry as the Terminator. T-2 had just come out that summer and Randy looked a lot like the 2-1000!
FYI, there are three major productions of The Nutcracker done annually in Metro Vancouver: by Goh Ballet, Royal City Youth Ballet, and by a company that Ballet BC brings in from out of town (this year, Royal Winnipeg Ballet). It’s a huge cash cow (although no cows usually appear in it) and is considered the gateway drug of ballets.
Louise has provided some “evidence” to prove that some writing was done for Act Two. Although there is no way to prove she didn’t just whip this up in Photoshop last night 🙂 , we present it here:
Let’s say it’s my only Nutcracker story. I’ve never seen the ballet. Going to my sister’s recitals put me off ballet.
You’re right, there was a brief top and tail to Act Two. And the middle was supposed to be improv but the director and the company didn’t have faith that could be pulled off and they didn’t want to get you to write a full script for it. So they tried doing improv in rehearsal and Second City style used what worked to make a loose script for the second act.
That was the frantic scramble, to actually write 80% of the second act in rehearsal. So the first act was tightly scripted with full musical numbers and the second act…. wasn’t. It wasn’t either fully improvised or scripted, it ended up a mix of both without the strengths of either because there wasn’t the confidence to commit to one way or the other.
Really strong first act though (Along with the Phantom musical number I loved the fight with the giant computer mouse). It would be a good show to remount updated with modern pop culture references.
Sorry for getting those details wrong.
Apology rejected! I was off in Halifax so I wasn’t around for rehearsals. I just saw the final uneven product. One reviewer loved it though — a student from Langara College’s newspaper who called it “a Christmas love story on acid.” Sorry your experience on it turned out to be a bad trip!
To be fair that student did watch the show while on acid.
Now as mentioned on the show, here’s the greatest Nutcracker of all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP_TsB4KmvA
And by apology rejected, I meant I rejected your need to apologize…not that I did not accept your apology! Sorry about the confusion!
The social convention is to say “No need to apologize”, but I like that you are blazing new trails, Louise!
It reminds me of the Key and Peele sketch about texting:
I just remembered something else about that play. It was reviewed in the local paper (The Province) by a writer who’d never stick around for the second act to our shows. Her deadline was so tight she needed to get the story in by 10pm. So she’d see the first act, guess the second and write the review.