Over the summer I had the pleasure of discovering Hugh Laurie. No, I did not find him in an old shoe box in the back of my closet next to the wrapping paper. I discovered some of his talents--I use the word "discover" because they were things that actually made me sit up and say "Wow." It's true. People were there, they saw it. It always feels good to discover something entertaining and impressive.
First, I saw House, MD. Yeah, okay, I knew who the guy was before that. Stuart Little's Dad. Right. Well, "House" is one of those TV shows that depends almost completely on the acting (the stories themselves are good, but I can't picture them without the acting), and Laurie seems to make that show happen in a way that no one else could. Second, my girlfriend loaned me her friend's copy of The Gun Seller, a novel he wrote back in the mid-1990's. It's good, and the style of the narrative makes you think that he might be doing some of the writing on "House." Then he appeared on "Inside the Actor's Studio" and performed a song called "Mystery." This was the precursor to "Wow," for when I looked up the performance on YouTube I found the original performance from the 1970's. [Click on it--it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen!] It was on a comedy-sketch show from England he did with Stephen Fry called--wait for it--"A Bit of Fry and Laurie." (There are several readers who are going, "Yeah? So? Known about it for years! Where the hell have you been?")
Here's why I was wowed: simple sketch comedy in it's purest form has always been my favorite, but it's hard to find that these days. SNL doesn't do it anymore, they're too into themselves. Monty Python did it. Benny Hill tried to do it, and only succeeded sometimes. Fry and Laurie, from what I can tell from the hours I've spent on YouTube over the last month, seem to have pulled it off. Which is good, because it's always good to find a new wellspring of something you really like.
It's bad too, because now I get to spend all kinds of time finding the damn thing on DVD at Amazon.
For those even remotely interested, Hugh Laurie's new book comes out later this month.
Observations, rants, and plausible
deniability from a person who refuses
to be a prisoner of his own world.
deniability from a person who refuses
to be a prisoner of his own world.
The Village
I AM WRITING!
My Screenplay -- Draft Three
I'm currently reading:
On my Kindle 2
I'm listening to:
iTunes Radio
I'm driving:
The Honda FCX Clarity
