The other day, I came across the video that floored me. It's from a British tribute to legendary producer Cameron Mackintosh called, Hey, Mr. Producer. And I've seen the special when it aired on PBS in 1998 -- but I have absolutely no recollection of this segment. Now, generally, I might say it's easy to forget a short sketch from two decades ago -- but this one would be really hard to forget. It's introduced by Stephen Sondheim -- who is met by thunderous applause -- and I remember Sondheim on the show. In fact, at one point in the evening he introduced someone who went to summer camp with: of all people, Tom Lehrer (who was there people Mackintosh had produced a revue of Lehrer songs, called Tomfoolery). And after Sondheim left the stage, Lehrer sat at the piano and quipped, "I always wondered what happened to that guy." But this sketch?? Absolutely no memory of it. And it would seem to be so memorable that I'm wondering if it got trimmed out of the PBS broadcast for time. Though why on earth would you trim this??? So -- it's either that, or I just don't remember it. And "it" is a sketch with Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber sitting together at one piano and playing sort of "Dueling Pianos" with one another! Yes, that's what I mean by, "This one would be really hard to forget." For several reasons, none of which I want to get into so that I don't give anything away -- beyond noting that one of those few reasons is that Sondheim (who is very funny here) says "Cameron asked me to devise a little something for this evening" -- I suspect that Sondheim did, in fact, write and arrange the piece, although Lloyd Webber might have possibly tweaked his part after the fact. It's a lot of fun. With a nice twist. Okay, I'm about to give something away. So, if you haven't watched the video yet, hold off reading any further and come back to it after the fact. I'll give you another moment to scroll away, so that your eyes don't drift down to the text below. Okay, are you back? Fine. What I want to add is this -- When Andrew Lloyd Webber does appear on stage with Sondheim after the video, I was trying to figure out why he could make it there for his comments, but not to do the musical number live. And the best I can figure is -- as he says, he's working on a show around the corner. And if he was going to perform in the tribute, he'd probably have to show up at least an hour early, and he just didn't have that kind of time, but here he could pop in at the last minute. Doing the video ahead of time, they could schedule that whenever it was convenient for him. Further, if they planned to do the number live at the tribute, and a big problem came up with his work so that he had to cancel, they'd be left without being able to do the number. If that meant he also couldn't show up live for his after-the-video comments, they could easily have just ended the segment with Sondheim, who probably would have added a word or two that Sir Andrew had wanted to say.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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