Word: comically
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...devoid of wit; the songs, though hummable and winsome, tend to have the same simple beat; and the narrative -- a reworking of Pygmalion in which a cheerily crooked Cockney finds himself heir to an earldom and a fortune if he can learn to behave like a swell -- is comic but farfetched. Yet the gaudy $4 million production has an unabashed desire to please, touches of sprightly invention (a mounted suit of armor abruptly walks offstage; ancestor portraits come alive and tap-dance) and a hugely likable cast, led by Robert Lindsay as the newfound aristocrat and Maryann Plunkett...
...role of Bill Snibson, the Cockney peer, was originally a star turn for Lupino Lane, a comic mime of the '30s. Lindsay, seen in the U.S. as Edmund in Laurence Olivier's TV King Lear, proves an inspired successor. He has mastered the stereotypical Cockney's accusatory inflections, rough humor, feral grace and odd parlor tricks, from a no-hands bobbing of his hat on his head to incessant, playful swiping of a bystander's gold watch. He brings vitality to such shopworn comedy as passing out, being revived and protesting, "Here! I didn't faint for water...
Life, death, sex, politics, family problems: all familiar themes on the opera stage, but usually performed by a cast of thousands. Last week Comic Robin Williams, 34, filled the cavernous stage of New York City's Metropolitan Opera House all by himself for two sold-out shows that were taped by HBO for a broadcast special. As usual, his seemingly extemporaneous material was achingly funny, mostly ribald and partly tailored to his surroundings: "Imagine Pavarotti at the Improv (comedy club)," he mused. Saluting the opera house itself, Williams called its huge crystal chandeliers "earrings from the Imelda Marcos collection...
...kind of surrogate Battle of the Long-Distance Pitchmen. AT&T employed Actor Cliff Robertson, who had earned a reputation for scrupulous honesty by blowing the whistle on a 1977 Hollywood embezzlement scandal, for a reported salary of $2 million a year. MCI riposted with Burt Lancaster and Comic Joan Rivers. Sprint was represented for a time by Psychologist Joyce Brothers. The campaign has also extended beyond the airwaves to local shopping malls and amusement parks, where the rival long-distance suppliers have even hired acrobats and clowns to promote their cause...
...honorable, antecedents. The Fly is a free, gory and engaging remake of the 1958 sci-fi horror movie, directed by Kurt Neumann, about a scientist who tampers with nature and switches heads with a housefly. Howard the Duck is a bestial bloviation of Steve Gerber's Marvel comic books of the '70s. The first film expands and enriches its schlock source; the second turns a wiseacre mallard into a $40 million promotion for stuffed Howards...