COMPETITION

Cliché time

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1608 you were in- vited to write a description of a play, film or sporting event in ripe journalese, incor- porating at least six clichés on the pattern of 'The bedroom scenes make the orgies of Tiberius look like a vicarage tea-party'.

In asking for 'this type' of cliché I wasn't insisting on an exact copy, only on generic type; however, nearly all of you inter- preted me narrowly rather than broadly, and the competition was none the worse for that. There was a foison of fine phrases, some of which deserve quoting: 'Cliff the lodger, as supernumerary as a power- assisted corkscrew at a Methodist rally' (D. A. Prince); 'Miss Keen, Trevor Nunn of the Primary School, stunned us with super- lative drama, doing for Religion what Roosevelt did for Teddies' (Amanda Nicholson); 'Ophelia drowns with a braw- ny athleticism that could have given poin- ters to Esther Williams' (Andrew McE- voy); 'Shakespeare's verbal riches sound as mundane as a recital of the telephone directory by a cast of speaking clocks' (E. 0. Parrott).

The winners printed below have £15 each, and the last bonus bottle of Highland Park 12-year-old Single Malt Whisky, pre- sented with characteristic benevolence by The Spectator, goes to Watson Weeks. If its Grade A witches you want, this film version of Macbeth is not for you. With their Sloane Ranger accents and designer bone- structure to match, they made your average duchess look like Bela Lugosi in drag. They danced around the cauldron, sure, but I've been more horrified by a Busby Berkeley spectacular. And as for the Satanic soup they're supposed to brew up, you'd get more yuk-making ingredients at a Women's Institute cook-in.

Now the good news. Duncan's murder (on screen) relegated the shower sequence in Psycho to a commercial for bath gel; and Lady Mac- beth, all studs and spikes and black leather, would make a chapter of Hell's Angels look like Hare Krishna converts.

But the mind-blowing stuff is kept for the grand finale: a twelve-round, no-holds-barred contest between Macduff and Macbeth in which the heavyweight Scottish champ makes me think Mike Tyson must be a reincarnation of Al

Jolson. (Watson Weeks)

Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot is as immediately accessible as a government docu- ment written in Swahili, and as thrilling as watching paint dry.

Two central characters, gentlemen of the road, Estragon and Vladimir, find making a decision as to go or wait as easy as choosing between salmonella-impregnated eggs and listeria-laced cheese. Itinerant characters — Pozzo, who is as adept at whiperacking as Cynthia Payne, and his slave Lucky — are about as helpful as Frank Spencer would be if em- ployed by the Samaritans, leaving the two tramps and the audience as bewildered as Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

In the end there is nothing achieved, nothing decided, a hung conclusion as clear and uplifting as a declaration of belief by the Bishop of Durham, leaving the audience as excited as a kid after Christmas. (Katie Mallets)

No shadow of doubt Hamlet was the genuine article in days of yore, but this day and age wants action and at this moment in time Elsinore makes jazz festivals sound like `Greensleeves'. The bottom line is drums DRUMS DRUMS and if they had this many near a cannibal hot-pot the corpse would jump out and eat the cook.

Watch out for Ophelia's king-size didgeridoo, for it makes a ship's siren sound like a penny whistle. It's powered by a 24-hp motor and if that's aboriginal I'm in Mensa. There are fifty guitar-playing grave-diggers and when you add a Ghost with a trumpet you'd find all the occu- pants of a real cemetery asking the way to the crematorium.

Don't miss Elsinore. You'll be deaf as a post and gasping for air when they call time — Noriega would be pleading for David Bowie.

(D. Shepherd)

Conducator! is a satirical one-acter that's pulling in the crowds at the Blue Lion Theatre in Dartford (a minuscule venue, compared to which the Ealing Warehouse resembles Wemb- ley arena). After this blistering political drama, Spitting Image will seem about as savage as the Gold Blend ad, and about as relevant. The show opens with Nicotae and Elena — so evil they make Adolf and Eva look like Hansel and Gretel — surrounded by enough odious family members to make a Neighbours Christmas Special appear decidedly lonesome.

And it's terribly, horribly funny. 'Such will be the splendour of my Avenue of the Victory of Socialism that the Champs Elysees will look like Petticoat Lane!' declares the megalomaniacal dictator.

With cracking one-liners like that, the play makes Oscar Wilde sound like a gag-writer for George Bush. Essential stuff. (Henry Urman)

For his open-air (Murrayfield) production of Hamlet at the Edinburgh Festival (an event of so much variety that Mr Heinz himself would be envious), Mr Fairbairn has chosen a set beside which the real Elsinore would seem a mere Lego model. The brook in which Mr Fowldes' Ophe- lia drowns (notably the first tenor to play the part) would dwarf the Forth, while Gertrude's bedchamber reduces a Savoy suite to the pro- portions of a rooming-house in a poor way of business. Musically, Mr Todhunter's score makes Wagner seem a tinkling cymbal. As for Mr Connolly's Hamlet, his gloominess renders a London pea-souper no more than a morning mist. Here is dolour by the ton, melancholy by

the bagful, and madness unlimited. It is a reading which rewrites the character, Shakespeare's genius redistributed between Orson Welles and Tennessee Williams.

(Fergus Porter)