As I seem to not have mentioned here in a week or more, my favorite musical comedy is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and I go see almost every production of it I can. This means I've seen some ghastly productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum but I've also seen some wonderful ones. The wonderful ones more than made up for the bad ones…and I will say this: Even a bad one always manages to get at least one huge laugh that I've never heard in any other production. The show is very malleable within certain limits and it leaves a lot of room for its actors to invent new stuff.
I am not going to see the new production which stars Geoffrey Rush but that's only because it's in Melbourne, Australia. I'm sure Melbourne is a lovely place with much to offer but I can't think of a single thing I'd enjoy so much that it would be worth fifteen hours on an airplane. I recently turned down being Guest of Honor at a big comic convention in India and its promoter wrote me and asked, "What can we do to make you reconsider?" I wrote him back, "Move it to Santa Monica." I don't think he's going to do this.
About six hours on a plane is my limit…my loss. Because I'll bet this is a wonderful staging of a great show. Here's a snippet…