Prom 40: Saturday 13th August 2011 at 7.30 p.m. (Comedy Prom)

[PJPJ]

did you think what Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand did to Andrew Sachs was great fun too? Were you yukking it up at Richard Hammond's slurs against Mexicans?

You say "edgy," I say "rotten".

Too? Read my posts - point out where I said anything was "great fun", and stop putting words into my mouth.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Had it been a Hoffnung-style concert with lots of new material, it might have been a great experience. As it was, it was dire, apart from the few Hoffnungy bits.

[Mr Pee]

I'm looking forward to making my own mind up when this is shown on TV. I think it sounds like a hugely entertaining evening, and The Arts Desk reviewer certainly seems to have enjoyed it:-

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4326:bbc-proms-tim-minchin-kit-and-the-widow-beardyman-bbc-concert-orchestra&Itemid=27

We need all the laughs we can get at the moment, and if this Prom provided some, how on earth can that be a bad thing? Heaven forfend that Classical Music should ever be FUN! The very idea.....

Adn I'll bet it provided a lot more humour than the kindergarten antics of the Last Night Prommers which we're forced to endure every September.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We need all the laughs we can get at the moment, and if this Prom provided some, how on earth can that be a bad thing? Heaven forfend that Classical Music should ever be FUN! The very idea.....

But this wasn't classical music - not by a mile.

[salymap]

Ooh, look--they're playing your song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8

Now THAT's funny.

And for what it's worth, it's not that I'm po-faced about everything: I certainly don't have a problem with raunchy humour as long as it's witty and clever. In fact, I've seen Tape-Faced Boy's "half-dress" act done much better as a neo-burlesque/performance art cabaret act in New York City: a Fay Wray/King Kong striptease to the tune of "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing". Tacky as all get-out, but that's part of the point.

Here's an article about the neo-burlesque performance art renaissance in New York. I suppose I prefer this kind of humour to much of what was on Radio 3 last night because although it's often crude and over-the-top, it's basically good-natured and seldom mean-spirited. Oh well, to each his own. And never in a million years would I say this kind of thing is appropriate for the Proms or Radio 3...that's my take on it, at any rate.

Afternoon cav, you quote a very good example by Flanders and Swann of how the British can laugh at themselves, actually.

[french frank]

Heaven forfend that Classical Music should ever be FUN! The very idea.....

I suppose what can grate is people who know nothing about classical music laughing at it

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do like comic songs, provided that they are well thought-out, perceptive and funny. Flanders and Swann ticked all those boxes. For a modern successor, listen to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

[cavatina]

We need all the laughs we can get at the moment, and if this Prom provided some, how on earth can that be a bad thing? Heaven forfend that Classical Music should ever be FUN! The very idea.....

Of course-- and like I said, I thought some of it was quite good. But I suppose I find a rather low upper bound on on how funny a song about wanting to murder your children in their sleep can be.

But hey, if you prefer your humour sour, jaded, and rotten, more power to you. Maybe I've spent too much time trying to fight off feeling nihilistic and depressed to find it uplifting. Black humor can be a very savage and destructive way to show searing contempt for everyone and everything-- like Baudelaire put it, "the man who laughs, but smiles no more". I don't want to encourage that in myself, so try to avoid the kind of humour that feeds it.

[BudgieJane]

We need all the laughs we can get at the moment, and if this Prom provided some, how on earth can that be a bad thing? Heaven forfend that Classical Music should ever be FUN! The very idea.....

There is plenty of fun in Classical Music. Take a look at Mozart's Ein musikalische Spaß which takes the p out of the town bands of his day, some of whose members were apparently unable to play in tune. (And the version that the BBC uses as a signature tune for its show jumping programs on telly has had all the funny bits removed by some idiot who didn't understand what's going on.) Haydn regularly adds humour to his works; just think of the Surprise symphony. Other pieces that readily spring to mind are Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals and Charles Ives's Country Band March. There are plenty more.

And I'll bet it provided a lot more humour than the kindergarten antics of the Last Night Prommers which we're forced to endure every September.

You're not forced to endure the Last Night of the Proms: you don't have to attend at the hall or in one of the parks, you don't have to listen to it on the radio, and you don't have to watch it on TV.

[EdgeleyRob]

I suppose what can grate is people who know nothing about classical music laughing at it

Although this guy knows a thing or two about classical music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7yb-JncKow

[Mr Pee]

You're not forced to endure the Last Night of the Proms: you don't have to attend at the hall or in one of the parks, you don't have to listen to it on the radio, and you don't have to watch it on TV.

Of course. And I rarely bother, because the tiresome antics of the prommers renders the whole thing unwatcheable. It's a shame. I'd really like to enjoy it, but the klaxons, hankerchiefs, and general faffing about make that impossible.

[BudgieJane]

but the klaxons, hankerchiefs, and general faffing about make that impossible.

Please don't tar everyone with the same brush. I think you'll find that the klaxons belong to a class of person that does not go to the proms regularly and only goes to the last night. None of the regular promenaders uses a klaxon; it's antisocial.

The sort of thing that we do is bobbing up and down or swaying from side to side in time with the music. Some of us might wave a flag occasionally, and some may wear formal attire or fancy dress. We set off party poppers and toss balloons around; after all, it is the end-of-season party. I have known people rotate a football rattle during applause. At the interval some of us decorate the conductor's podium. This hasn't changed much since the first Last Night I attended, in 1970, and it was traditional then, so it is just the continuation of a well-established tradition.

[Chris Newman]

Indeed, Sir Malcolm Sargent actually encouraged some childishness and Colin Davis sat quite heavily on those who went OTT. Some conductors of last nights refused to do it again because of the bad behaviour: Vernon Handley, Raymond Leppard and Sir Charles Mackerras, all much loved by the real Promenaders, only put up with it the once in the 1970s.

[Mary Chambers]

Please don't tar everyone with the same brush. I think you'll find that the klaxons belong to a class of person that does not go to the proms regularly and only goes to the last night. None of the regular promenaders uses a klaxon; it's antisocial.

The sort of thing that we do is bobbing up and down or swaying from side to side in time with the music.

Or more usually, from what I've observed on television, not in time to the music. (I'm sure that doesn't apply to anyone who posts here )

[BudgieJane]

Or more usually, from what I've observed on television, not in time to the music. (I'm sure that doesn't apply to anyone who posts here )

You'd be surprised. After a few Albert Einstein's time dilation seems to take hold. How on earth I manage to sober up to be able to drive home afterwards I'll never know

<aside>
Gordon Bennett, these smilies are awful! Who drinks shampoo from a saucer these days?
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