A Mark In Time
General Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Pottel on June 06, 2012, 02:54:16 PM
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i think this was ABSOLUTELY brilliant...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Ka17LIIfU
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The whole show was great and the best bit was Prince Charles' speech at the end. A real touching tribute to his mother. Proud to be British. :)
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The whole show was great and the best bit was Prince Charles' speech at the end. A real touching tribute to his mother. Proud to be British. :)
I totally agree! Prince Charles was the best on the bill! ;D Also, the next day, with the Queen and family on the balcony, was so moving. The crowds chanting "God Save The Queen" and singing The National Anthem, etc was wonderful! The few anti-Monarchists didn't stand a chance! ;)
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Madness on the roof was great, but Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Elton John were best for me. The oldies sure know how to entertain a crowd and prove once again that there are no decent live acts for the future. Charles was good too and the whole weekend was a triumph of everything British.
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I was talking with my wife about this when watching some reports about it in spanish television. Its so nice how people in Britain celebrate the jubilee of the queen. In Spain nobody cares a damm about the Royal Family, well, some people care as in the royal weddings you will see lots of people in the street, but thats all, there is no a "feeling" about the Royal Family, actually, something like the Queen Jubilee cant happen in Spain at all...
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At least you HAVE a Queen! We only have Mrs. Merkel... :P :-X
LE
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At least you HAVE a Queen! We only have Mrs. Merkel... :P :-X
LE
Hottie! ;D ;D
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Madness on the roof was great, but Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Elton John were best for me. The oldies sure know how to entertain a crowd and prove once again that there are no decent live acts for the future. Charles was good too and the whole weekend was a triumph of everything British.
I wonder if Alex Salmond was proud to be British? Slimeball that guy!
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At least you HAVE a Queen! We only have Mrs. Merkel... :P :-X
LE
Mmm, Spain is ruled by a woman called Merkel as well, and she
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Madness on the roof was great, but Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Elton John were best for me. The oldies sure know how to entertain a crowd and prove once again that there are no decent live acts for the future. Charles was good too and the whole weekend was a triumph of everything British.
I wonder if Alex Salmond was proud to be British? Slimeball that guy!
Looking more like Jabba the Hutt as the days go by! ;D
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The "Madness" sequence was terrific. I just wish the BBC had used "picture-in-picture" and had shown Madness in the top one-third of the screen (where the black sky was) and shown the animation in the bottom two-thirds of the screen in a single, continuous shot of the whole building, without cutting back and forth between shots. The animation was clearly designed to be seen as a whole.
Overall, I thought the music was pretty good but the comedians (many of whom are very funny in other contexts) were pathetic. I know that you have to something on between the musical acts but most of these people were just not up to the task. They simply did not entertain.
Bringing on Rolf Harris to fill a gap with an unplanned rendition of "Two Little Boys" and then to cut him short at a key point was unforgivable. OK, the song may be a touch mawkish but it has a long history (over 100 years old), was a #1 in Britain, was used to support the Poppy Appeal one year and was a song with which many in the audience could sing along. Incidentally, I suspect that old-stager Rolf Harris would have made a better job of linking the musical elements than the parade of the inept that we experienced.
The people who really deserve our thanks were the technicians who set it up and kept it all going. They did a wonderful job.
The final indignity of the TV coverage was running the final credits over the fireworks display. The BBC's excuse was that the programme was over-running by 4 minutes. Forgive me but, with this type of live broadcast, the likelihood of over-running is very high indeed. The BBC should have had contingency plans in place and they should not have included spoiling the firewoorks display for the viewer.
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More ranting and some more praise.
I noted that there was a large proportion of Welsh performers and only one Scot - Annie Lennox - and nobody from Northern Ireland that I could spot. This was a national event and I would have preferred a choice of performers that better represented this country as a whole. And, by the way, I'm English, not Scottish or Irish. There were Americans on the bill and I'm not complaining. Stevie Wonder did well and Renee Fleming, though not my favourite type of music, had a simply wonderful voice - great range and power - but I'd've preferred more Scots and Northern Irish.
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I agree that all of the technicians, particularly the lighting crew, deserved a lot of praise!
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More ranting and some more praise.
I noted that there was a large proportion of Welsh performers and only one Scot - Annie Lennox - and nobody from Northern Ireland that I could spot. This was a national event and I would have preferred a choice of performers that better represented this country as a whole. And, by the way, I'm English, not Scottish or Irish. There were Americans on the bill and I'm not complaining. Stevie Wonder did well and Renee Fleming, though not my favourite type of music, had a simply wonderful voice - great range and power - but I'd've preferred more Scots and Northern Irish.
One more Scots born artist on the bill would have made me very happy indeed! ;)
I did think Lenny Henry was funny, especially his impersonation of Prince Charles selling DVD's of the show for
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I agree about Lenny Henry. Apart from interrupting Rolf Harris, he did OK. He is an old-stager in terms of this kind of event and got the right tone. Peter Kay appearing in a Beefeater outfit caused me to chuckle but Rob Brydon and Miranda Hart were just not funny. And I have enjoyed much of their TV work. Brydon's a bit full of himself these days, mind you, so probably thinks he did brilliantly himself.
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There was also an Australian performing, the blind aboriginal guy (whom I have a -good- cd of) and who is an enormous knopfler fan, just cannot remember his name fit now. Gumurull or something.
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I do agree with you twm about the comic element, many of whom struggle to raise a laugh without resorting to foul language these days. Perhaps this was the problem. ::)
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You're probably right, dmg. Another problem was that, on occasions, the comedians seemed more intent on addressing the TV cameras (and thus the TV audience) rather than the audience around the stage. This caused a "disconnect" in a live situation.
Also, each comedic segment was so short that the comedians didn't have the opportunity to build a line of humorous comment up to a really funny punchline. AS professionals, they should have realised this and adjusted their material accordingly.
Even Lee Mack seemed unable to "connect ". He can be incredibly quick, sharp and witty on a TV game show and not too bad a stand-up comedian, based on the few occasions I've seen him on TV, but none of that came across.
Most of the comedians in the concert seemed to want to be "clever" (or "smartarse"), failing to recognise that they were not performing to their regular audience and failing to recognise that a concert setting like that is different from what they're used to. This crowd came for a music concert and for the Diamond Jubilee event, not for a night out with comedians. They didn't make me proud to be British - I cringed most of the time they were on.