A Song In My Heart and a Gun In My Hand.

...But apart from that Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the show?

Right, let's get the pleasantries out of the way - thanks to John and Theresa for tipping me off about this. Now, down to business. This rant comes to you in two acts, both of them very loud. Can you get your fucking mind round this!?!
Small Town's main theatre is publicising a new show which is booked to run for five days. Nothing unusual in that, no. It is the style of show and the subject matter which have got me reaching for the headache tablets and a weapon.
It is a musical. Again, nothing untoward you might think. Musicals are seemingly the only stage productions produced these days in this country. It is a tad disturbing to me, however, because.............urm...........how can I put this?............I FUCKING HATE musicals! No, come to think of it, there isn't a word to describe the depths of my loathing for musicals. I like stories, yarns, tales, plots. What do you get with a sodding musical? You get a story which is fucking ruined by constant, warbling interruptions. For example, they could be staging an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit. We get to a critical point in the performance when the detective announces to the family and serving staff gathered in the library that he knows the identity of the murderer and then he turns to the audience and says: "The killer is....." Then a piano cuts in with some dreary tune and some cunt starts singing something like "he's going to tell, he'll cast a spell, he's going to tell and someone here is bound for Hell..dee dum dee dum, dee dum dee dum etc." Shut the fuck up, will you!! Just SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! By the time this rubbish has finished the only murderer in the theatre is likely to be me. I once went to see The Hound of the Baskervilles at Small Town Theatre but the friends with whom I went failed to tell me one minor detail. It was a musical. What the Hell there is to sing about in the story of a serial killer and a giant, ravenous dog which rips people to pieces is beyond me. The cast managed it though, I gather. I say "gather" because I walked out after five minutes. I have a theory that John Wilkes Booth did not shoot President Abraham Lincoln during a production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in 1865 because he was infuriated at the idea of black people getting the vote - it was because the show was a fucking musical and he just couldn't take any more.
Part two of this rant concerns the subject matter of this soon-to-be-staged show - it's called "Thatcher - The Musical"! AAaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

The production will be premiered next month and I am sorry to say it has been produced by a bunch of women and a theatre company close to where I live. The pseud and luvvie-packed Radio 4 programme Front Row - which I also hate - described this abortion of an idea for a production as "Sharp, critical, imaginative, intelligent... and extremely funny". Funny!?! She put 4 million fucking people on the dole! There were riots over the poll tax, riots over inner-city slums and riots over The Met being called in to taunt and cavalry charge striking miners. She told everyone there was no such thing as society. She succeeded in dividing the nation along so many lines while the best Hitler could manage was to unite everyone in defence of the nation. The Gordon Ghekos of this world thrived and greed became the watchword. Yeah, laugh-a-minute stuff. Well worth singing about. "I snatched the milk...dee dum dee dum....as smooth as silk.....dee dum dee dum......there's no more coal, all on the dole along with others of that ilk....dee dum dee dum". Fuck off!
The only piece of good news to report is that Small Town Theatre was to have hosted an audience with Thatcher's lisping, horse-faced daughter Carol later this month but it has now been cancelled. A theatre spokesman said the evening had been scrubbed "due to an extension of Ms Thatcher's current filming commitments in the southern hemisphere". No doubt David Attenborough is trying to get her on celluloid for a new series on whales!
Musicals! Oh yes, it's Grantham time, without a doubt. Just in case I haven't already sent Thatcher back to her home town, she can go too. Let the townsfolk see if they still feel proud of her.