Gardlyloo. (gär' dè lòò'). interj. (a cry formerly used in Scotland to warn pedestrians when slops were about to be thrown from an upstairs window.) [Anglicized form of F gare (de) l'eau beware of the water]
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, © 1989 - Dilithium Press, Ltd.
Firegazer and I went to the Sydney Theatre last night to see a musical comedy starring Marina Prior and Magda Szubanski called The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Billed as:
"... six socially-challenged,philologically-industrious twelve-year-olds battling it out for glory: to be sole survivor in their local spelling competition".
It was excellent.
As STC subscribers we've been to a few great plays/shows this year but this was the first one where we felt the audience was applauding because they loved it and not because it was the right thing to do. There were no awkward should we applaud now? moments, instead the audience felt free to laugh, applaud and yell-out at any point they pleased - at times the actors has to motion for us to calm down.
Warning: possible spoilers ahead
This show has audience participation. Four (previously primed) members of the audience were called out to be spelling bee particpants. The idea was that they would be given a couple of easy words (cat, mexicans) then be gonged out a couple of rounds later on some ridiculously difficult words.
But this is live theatre so, of course, it didn't go like that.
The last audience member standing managed to spell "Gardlyloo" (pronounced Gar de loo) sending the whole cast into shock, and then fits of laughter, while they hurredly found a new more proposterous word.
I really hope this fun small-scale musical comedy comes to your city (it's been to Melb. already) - if it does make sure you get a ticket.
5 comments:
Cousin It and I saw this on Broadway two years ago. It is fabulous! At the time it had just won The Tony, but that was all we knew about it, so were really surprised at how much fun it was.
We had a similar thing where the last audience member was able to spell the ridiculously difficult word...except in this case, the audience member was all of about 12!
Sounds like fun! Did you see the news item on the Brain Bee where year 11 students were quizzed about diseases, treatment and spelling of words about the central nervous system and the brain. Not surprising these child geniuses were all contemplating specialised medical careers. Back to the dictionary for TeamSAK!
I smell a rat...
How is the Kingsolver book?
I wish I'd seen it when it was here. And I still haven't seen the film about the spelling bee, apparently that is great fun too.
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