nonsense, yes, perhaps -- but oh, such precious nonsense!

[angevin2]

Gilbert and Sullivan have been all over my friends list today for some reason, so I thought that it might be fun to repost some of my reasonably extensive (read: far too extensive to be healthy) collection of G&S parodies, most of them on Tolkienian or Shakespearean topics. Those of you who've known me for a while can probably skip over them safely

Comments

[darthfox]

oh, man, how excellent! i had some scansion issues with claudius' verse, but i think it's probably to do with typing -- 'inside the church' would fix one of them, for instance -- but whatever, because rhyming "royal" with "destroy all" is exactly gilbertian. :-D

[angevin2]

Thank you! I was rather proud of that particular rhyme myself. ;)

I was imagining "kneel" as disyllabic in Claudius' line, but I see your point...

[angevin2]

Thank you! It's my favorite too, and yes, the speech makes me giggle as well. (There's a footnote in the Arden edn of HV that says something like "Actors often pause after this line to get a laugh, which is wrong, because there's nothing obscure about either the evidence or the presentation," which I find one of the more spectacularly misguided footnotes I've seen...)

[angevin2]

Yes! I saw the RSC's production of the Henry VIs a few years back, when they did the residency in Michigan, and that line got a huge round of applause.

As for Canterbury's speech, the beauty of it is that it's a very simple argument at heart: "Salic law only applies in Salic land, which is not in France but in Germany. We know it doesn't apply in France because any number of their kings claim the crown through the female line, including the current one, so your Majesty is in the clear if you do the same." But it's phrased in such a spectacularly convoluted fashion that there really is something intrinsically comic about it, I think. (Which I guess is why Olivier's treatment of it in his film doesn't annoy me as much as it might.)

The Arden editor of HV tends to be a bit priggish generally, though it's a good edition on the whole. ;)

[gnimmel]

*rapturous applause*

[angevin2]

*bows* :D

Oh rapture!

[dakiwiboid]

Trips away to tell filkerdave!

Re: Oh rapture!

[angevin2]

Hooray! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[the_lady_lily]

Thank you. You have managed to filk the only piece of G&S that I've ever sung in with one of the funniest speeches I've ever had the pleasure to read. I think I may love you.

[the_lady_lily]

You'll have to give me advanced warning to prep for it, because otherwise it would be silly. Hmph.

[angevin2]

Aw, thank you! :D

That speech is tremendously fun to read, isn't it? One of the only things I've ever done in class that seems to have genuinely impressed my students was delivering it when I taught Henry V last fall -- watching the looks on their faces as it went on and on was just wonderful.