Cornucopia

“I warn you. I won’t be back.”

Brad Anderson

“I warn you. I won’t be back.”

Brad Anderson

‘Who on the earth can witness without awe, the canvas and the rigging of the law?’ – there is certainly nothing uninspiring about the inside of the Royal Courts of Justice (the architectural style is High Hogwarts) crammed as they are with most learned ladies and gentlemen in their gowns, bands and wigs, with high-falutination, and what a grand dramatic irony to think that, sometime in the Nineteenth Century, those very clerks and ushers, briefs and barristers, even the most Gilbertian of learned judges, tucked over luncheon, in robing rooms or chambers, or in nearby Bell Yard, into the famous local delicacy – those very jurists with the occasional (and most undeserved) reputation for leading justice by the nose, themselves having their noses sharply tweaked – for Mrs Lovat’s goluptious pies were filled with human meat.

And what a role for an actor – especially one as florid as the great Tod Slaughter of the Elephant and Castle Theatre – playing Sweeny Todd, his own wild hair a nest of scissors, combs and clips, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, polishing off his customers in a jiffy, a swift slice of the razor, the chair pitched back, tipping the dying man into the cellar for butchery before his jointed carcass was passed through the trapdoor into the basement of the adjacent premises, where a poor captive made the pies for Mrs Lovett to bake.

‘Who on the earth can witness without awe, the canvas and the rigging of the law?’ – there is certainly nothing uninspiring about the inside of the Royal Courts of Justice (the architectural style is High Hogwarts) crammed as they are with most learned ladies and gentlemen in their gowns, bands and wigs, with high-falutination, and what a grand dramatic irony to think that, sometime in the Nineteenth Century, those very clerks and ushers, briefs and barristers, even the most Gilbertian of learned judges, tucked over luncheon, in robing rooms or chambers, or in nearby Bell Yard, into the famous local delicacy – those very jurists with the occasional (and most undeserved) reputation for leading justice by the nose, themselves having their noses sharply tweaked – for Mrs Lovat’s goluptious pies were filled with human meat.

And what a role for an actor – especially one as florid as the great Tod Slaughter of the Elephant and Castle Theatre – playing Sweeny Todd, his own wild hair a nest of scissors, combs and clips, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, polishing off his customers in a jiffy, a swift slice of the razor, the chair pitched back, tipping the dying man into the cellar for butchery before his jointed carcass was passed through the trapdoor into the basement of the adjacent premises, where a poor captive made the pies for Mrs Lovett to bake.

My Nan’s budgie somehow used to get itself hanging in the curls of the curtain, puffed up like it had found the best seat in the house, refusing to come down no matter how nicely she called it.

Nan would stand there saying, “Come on, sweetheart,” while the rest of us watched from the sofa, trying not to laugh. The budgie would just tilt its little head, look down at us, and stay exactly where it was, completely unbothered.

In the end, there was only one thing that worked. Nan would fetch a tiny piece of apple, hold it up, and suddenly the little rascal would decide it was ready to be friends again. Down it would flutter, proud as anything, as if the whole performance had been planned from the start.

My Nan’s budgie somehow used to get itself hanging in the curls of the curtain, puffed up like it had found the best seat in the house, refusing to come down no matter how nicely she called it.

Nan would stand there saying, “Come on, sweetheart,” while the rest of us watched from the sofa, trying not to laugh. The budgie would just tilt its little head, look down at us, and stay exactly where it was, completely unbothered.

In the end, there was only one thing that worked. Nan would fetch a tiny piece of apple, hold it up, and suddenly the little rascal would decide it was ready to be friends again. Down it would flutter, proud as anything, as if the whole performance had been planned from the start.

“I suggest you take the pins out of the map and stick them into your salesmen.”

Brad Anderson

“I said, ‘My old one still works O.K.’!”

Walter Goldstein

“I said, ‘My old one still works O.K.’!”

Walter Goldstein

“Al! Remember that ad we placed for an aggressive, hard-hitting salesman?”

Brian Savage

“Al! Remember that ad we placed for an aggressive, hard-hitting salesman?”

Brian Savage