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.

Plass repeated

A friend gave me a book a few days ago called Seriously Funny, by Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas. I'm a Plass fan from way back, and think he's done the Christian community a great deal of good over the years in terms of getting them to laugh at themselves and not take themselves so seriously.

When I ran the bookshop I met him a couple of times - he's toured New Zealand with his wife at least twice - and he's very down to earth, quite shy in a way and, of course, not especially funny in conversation - as humorous writers/speakers often aren't.

Anyway, I began to read this book and discovered it consists of a series of letters between Plass and Lucas, and I thought: I'm sure I've read this before, except it had a different title. And I got niggled that the publishers should put out the book as though it was brand new, and had never been published before, and that Lucas should be appearing in a promo on You Tube saying that they'd just come up with this idea.

Checked the Internet. No sign of a previous book by Plass and Lucas. Felt quite irritated. Said to my wife that it really bugs when publishers pretend they haven't published something before, especially under a different title. (It has happened: we once ordered in a stock of books by a well-known author, thinking that it was a new title, and would be very popular with his readers, only to find out that they English publishers had given it a different title to the American publishers, and carefully not told anyone.)

Got home tonight, was reading the book again, and it suddenly clicked that I had a copy of the earlier version on my shelves. Searched, and there it was!

Except it wasn't. The earlier book is called You Say Tomato; it's by Adrian Plass and Paul McCusker; it's fictional, and, apart from being a series of letters, is nothing like the new book.

Oh, dear. The lights were on but no one was home, as they say.