Count Arthur Strong – The Musical? (DVD)
Original price was: £10.99.£5.00Current price is: £5.00. inc VAT
The 2007 live show filmed at Komedia in Brighton where Arthur attempts to raise money recall his distinguished career in a musical.
The Chortle review at the time…
Count Arthur Strong’s long and losing battle with senility always offers some of the more bizarre spectacles of the fringe, and this year is no exception.
This time around the self-imagined showbusiness legend has decided to stage a musical about his eventful life, and this, supposedly, is a pitch to would-be angels wanting to invest in his planned West End extravaganza.
It wouldn’t be giving much away to say it doesn’t go exactly smoothly.
I loved his enraged rants in which he tries to spit out aggravation, bile and petulant revenge, especially at the theatre critic of the Doncaster Recorder, only to find him hampered by a lack of mental sharpness, which in turn frustrates him more, drawing him into some inescapable emotional feedback loop.
The set pieces are marvellous, especially a piccalilli taste test involving his put-upon sidekick, and every cackhanded sample of the promised musical: his Ode to Doncaster, delivered wearing angel wings; the clunky script, the appalling and baffling attempt at transatlantic accents, the fumbled dressing room mirror skit, and an out-of-character Eminem spoof.
There are plenty of fine comic moments in another barking mad show.
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