Last night one of those surreal moments happened that make life worthwhile. I was sitting at the back of a darkened theatre full of arm-waving kids, with a Sunday School teacher on both sides of me, la-laing into each ear an Elton John classic, 'Crocodile Rock' - or, as it had been rebaptised, 'Sunday School Rock' - being 'played' by a bunch of Muppet-like puppets on stage.
A local Methodist church (Woodseats Methodist) has a slick puppeteering team (who struggled slightly on a raked stage, but that wasn't their fault) presenting to rapturous Mexican waves of churched children such Christian classics as 'Raindrops Keep Falling on my Boat', 'New Life, New Life' (think Sinatra), 'Hallelujah, it's Fishers of Men' and 'Y Not 2Day?' (about the possibilities of witnessing to Jesus). In case you'd not guessed, the last two are better known even to cultural morons like me as the Queen numbers 'Hallelujah, it's Raining Men' and 'YMCA' - the latter made even more plain by the headgear of the puppets involved.
To its target audience, the show went down big. But I was left confused.
Do the presenters realise these are gay anthems? Is the musical director a Freddie Mercury fan? Or is this just a bizarre example of cultures passing in the night?
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I tried to comment on this earlier but my system didn't seem to let me. So I'm trying again. But it's kind of got lost in the moment. You see I got confused about the queen you were talking about the first time I read it and I thought it was 'our own dear queen' as in Haanah's recent joke: 'Does the queen ever jump into bed, pull the sheets up to her neck and say to Philip "look, One is being a stamp"'. Of course then I realised it was puppets and not the royal family you were bloggin about - sorry.
ReplyDeleteTell Hannah: good joke!
ReplyDeleteI do know what you mean about cultures passing in the night - felt a bit like this once at about 3am in Berlin watching an East German version of glam rock with words mainly taking the mickey out of the former communist regime - the music was pure Sweet or Slade
ReplyDeleteNo no no, they're not Queen songs (tch!). YMCA was by the Village People, and It's Raining Men by the Weather Girls. But oh yes, they are gay anthems (have you ever seen Priscilla: Queen of the Desert? These songs have starring roles!). Although of course this wouldn't be an issue to a child audience who's parents may not even have been born when these songs were famous. I think things like this are best left to the intended audience, and judged purely on their reactions. To me it sounds very bizarre. But if the kids loved it, doesn't that make it OK?
ReplyDeleteLove the HRH joke :D