Jo's jottings

The Laurel and Hardy play by Tom McGrath is back at the Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme in April, with a different cast. Unfortunately the talkback night is when we are on our honeymoon - wherever that may be! Ant won't tell me and I do like surprises. One of my recent eBay purchases was a Mork and Mindy box set. In the episode To Tell the Truth, first broadcast on 2nd November 1978, Mork tells Mindy all about Laurel and Hardy. He cries, scratches his head and does a tie-twiddle. While we are on the subject of the Boys in the media, Josh caught a mention on CITV on 8th November 2007 on the programme Jim, Jim and Sunny. A puppet character referred to someone as being like Laurel and Hardy. On The One Show on BBC1, Ben Elton mentioned the Boys and said that he is a fan of their comedy. Did any eagle-eyed viewers spot the Boys' figurines in Celebrity Wife Swap (C4, 27.01.08.)? During this episode, featuring Freddie Starr and Sam Fox, we saw that Freddie had a small bust (no pun intended) of them in the kitchen and he had in his living room the same bench figurine that Ant had for Christmas. There were no other comedy references in Freddie's house that we could see. I noticed on the BBC programme Wonderland (BBC2, 16.01.08.) with the lovable Norman Wisdom that he showed a picture of Laurel and Hardy before he showed the crew a photo of him and the Queen. I have been reading Norman's autobiography, in which so far he has mentioned the Boys twice and I am only on page 230. In the latest Bowler Dessert there is a photo of Michael Palin with figurines of the Boys. One of our tent members (whom I haven't met!) spotted a reference in Michael Palin's diaries 1969-1979: "Missed the Statue of Liberty ferry, walked back up Broadway, bought two plastic statues of Laurel and Hardy in a tatty street market on Canal Street. . . ." Joanne Mitchell