Do You Think Thats Wise...?: the Life of John Le Mesurier Free

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Do You Think Thats Wise...?: the Life of John Le Mesurier Free FREE DO YOU THINK THATS WISE...?: THE LIFE OF JOHN LE MESURIER PDF Graham McCann | 352 pages | 01 May 2012 | Aurum Press Ltd | 9781845137908 | English | London, United Kingdom Do You Think That's Wise?: The Life of John Le Mesurier by Graham McCann He rehearses some anecdotes and funny stories for the Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier. But as he digs deeper, cracks begin to appear, and for the first time he confronts the shadows in his life — the unfaithfulness of his wives, the betrayal by his best friend Tony Hancock. How did he overcome these setbacks? For the first time he faces head-on the events that almost broke him both as a performer and as a man. Writer, impressionist, actor View more posts. Will more northern dates feature in the tour? If yes, how can I sign up for alerts please? Cheers, Julian. Hi Tristan — hopefully, all future dates will be posted up as soon as thy are booked. Do follow me on twitter if you can for regular updates, and this website — many thanks! You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier Like Loading Published by Julian Dutton Writer, impressionist, actor View more posts. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Post to Cancel. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy. Do You Think That's Wise? The Life & Times of John Le Mesurier - The Acorn, Penzance We meet up with him during some downtime in his dressing room. He appeared in more than films over his career, with playing a policeman in Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire apparently an early highlight. Less agreeably, he was married three times, but never happily. His first wife, June, became an alcoholic and they split on Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier demob. Famously, second wife Hattie Jacques cuckolded him with her driver John Schofield, while Le Mesurier moved into the attack of the family home. Dutton nonetheless conveys some of the anguish it Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier have caused, but which his breeding would never allow him to show. At the point Hancock took his own life, Le Mesurier had, by Dutton's telling. Work was drying up and a career of supporting character roles seemed to be his lot. Indeed, that seems to have been his lot of this life, and Dutton does well to convey the ups and downs with the sort of clipped emotion that defined gentlemen of that era and class. There is an awful lot of story to cram in, too, yet it never seems rushed - even though this is a cut-down version of the full show that will be touring theatres — as opposed to Free Festival broom closets — in the autumn. Fans of classic British comedy thinking of missing this portrait of one of its stalwarts might want to ask themselves the titular question. Out Of Her Mind. Mo Gilligan: Black, British and Funny. Taskmaster series Stand Up For Live Comedy. We see you are using AdBlocker software. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable. Find Live comedy Where? Edinburgh Fringe review by Steve Bennett. Share this page. What do you think? Theatre review: Do You Think That’s Wise? The Life & Times of John Le Mesurier at Bloomsbury Studio John Dutton Bloomsbury Studio 10 — 12 April In Julian Dutton's warm and endearing tribute to British actor John Le Mesurier, the pretext Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier his reminiscences is preparing for an interview with a newspaper journalist. We find him backstage, knocking back whisky, waiting to be called for a camera rehearsal for an episode of Dad's Army, Jimmy Perry and David Croft's super-successful comedy which ran for nine series, with various radio and film spinoffs. A televisual national treasure, this BBC sitcom now celebrating its 50th anniversary, has lodged itself firmly within popular culture. It was not until Dutton's show that I realised how little I know about him, as against say Tony Hancock, who Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier an affair with Le Mesurier's third wife. Despite this disloyalty, the pair remained friends until Hancock's suicide some time later. Professionally, Le Mesurier brushed up against the good and the great from his training at drama school and throughout his early time in rep, his career largely steady but underwhelming whilst the others—Alex Guinness and James Mason to name just two—enjoyed greater things. Le Mesurier credits his agent and second wife, the prolific Hattie Jacques, rather than any endeavour of his own, for his eventual progression into B-movies and supporting parts in now classic films such as I'm Alright Jack and popular television shows such as Hancock's. In spite of his first marriage ending when Le Mesurier returned from the Second World War to find his wife had become an alcoholic, he succumbed to excessive drinking, often in the company of journalist and notorious drinker Jeffrey Bernard and Hancock, disappearing for daylong benders and ruining a personal and professional idyllic period that ran across the s. Despite such dissolute behaviour and private pain, that Dutton's show fails to deliver a real dramatic punch is all bound up with the temperament of Le Mesurier himself rather than a deficiency in the script, which can only Do You Think Thats Wise.?: The Life of John Le Mesurier the man himself. Dutton the playwright keeps the timeline moving along, mixing biographical information with anecdotes and a good sprinkling of name-dropping, which last night's audience greeted with mumbled approval. The difficulty is that even at the most emotionally traumatic moments Le Mesurier appears to have reacted with more of a whimper than a bang: when Hattie Jacques installed her boyfriend into the family home, he moved to an upstairs bedroom to suffer and cling onto the hope that the marriage could be rescued. It couldn't, and were it not for the death of Hancock happening when it did, perhaps Le Mesurier wouldn't have retrieved his third marriage either; he seems a character without vitality to whom things happened. Aged 56, Dad's Army landed in his lap and provided him with a family when he needed one. He played the role of Sergeant Wilson as himself, a performance, if you can call it that, which led to non-comedic roles, one of which won him a BAFTA. As we run out of reminiscences, Le Mesurier, swaying under the influence of the many whiskys, recalling past colleagues like a dying man seeing his life pass before him, the effect is more sad than wretched. Dutton is an excellent mimic and exudes the charm and easy, genial style of his subject. In so doing, he pulls off a clever trick, showing us a man who is essentially pathetic and alcoholic whist never ruining our fond memory of Le Mesurier as the helpless and hugely funny Sergeant Wilson..
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