Grimhilda (with an exclamation mark)

The musical I've been writing (script with a collaborator, music mostly on my own) is getting to a point where things are mostly in place. The script's been honed and refined until we're pretty much satisfied with it (there are a couple of minor repair jobs to come, but they're not going to affect the structure), and I've nearly done a first draft of everything in the music (just a couple of small sections to deal with) and am onto the umpteenth draft of some sections.

One of the things that had been concerning me for some time was that the script didn't have a title. This didn't seem to unduly concern my collaborator, but I reasoned that if we were going to advertise it in any way, or talk about it, or apply for funding, then we needed to have a working title at the very least.

We texted each other all manner of names on our respective téléphones cellulaires and none of them seemed quite to get to the gist of things. In the end we settled on Grimhilda! (exclamation point is essential), because in part it makes someone who doesn't know the piece ask who Grimhilda is, and/or why a musical should be called that. It's also short and relatively punchy, and gives some sort of impression by the kind of name that there's something a bit different about it. (It might also give the impression that it's an undiscovered opera by Wagner - that's him on the right - but we'll have to live with that.)

I mentioned Grimhilda! on Facebook the other day, and that roused some readers to give a variety of other possible names in their comments. One person got a bit carried away with links to the recent activities of Don Brash, who somehow has managed to become the leader of a political party when he wasn't even a member of the aforesaid party nor a sitting politician. Very weird.

Another friend, however, came up with a great variety of options, and rather than leaving them to be lost in the seemingly unsearchable pages of Facebook, I've decided to give them fame and posterity here.

In his first comment, he wrote the following: Personally I like "The Crowl & the Pussycat" or "The Last Temptation of Toby" or "Grimhilda da de dum de dooby doo" Or "Th Th The Suh Suh SuhSound o o o of M M Mu Mu Music" (a la Kings Speach). I think it might be the King's Speech, but we'll let it pass.

He also came up with The Brothers Grimhilda but I pointed out that the main character doesn't have any brothers, so using that was going to catch us under the Fair Trading Act.

His last comment had his most inspired creations: How about "Wet Slide Story"... "My Fair Lazy" ..."Hello Polly"... "Crease"..."Man of La Muncha".."Funny Grill" ?

The fact that none of these (with the possible exception of Hello Polly - there is a character called Polly in the musical, but he didn't know that) had any relevance to our musical didn't particularly concern him. We'd discussed possible titles; he'd given us choices.

PS, I couldn't put Grimhilda! in the title of this post, because Blogger doesn't allow exclamation marks anywhere but in the main part of the post. Piffle.