oneiriad

Tonight is Christmas Eve, as I am sure everybody already knows - alas, this means that I have to find some way to pass the time - so I think I will make a post about what I did yesterday.

One thing to be said: If you ever find yourself in Copenhagen, Denmark (or the vicinity thereof) in the month of December, go see the Crazy Christmas Cabaret. It is extremely funny, hilarious, and various other synonyms - well worth the price of a ticket. It is theatre full of English humour, made by an Englishwoman - Vivienne McKee - who lives in Denmark, and, well, I am really not good at telling about this kind of stuff, so...

Anyway, I had a ticket for yesterday´s show, so off I go to Copenhagen. The Cabaret plays in a theatre called Glassalen which lies in the middle of Tivoli, which means that you get into Tivoli for free on the day you have a ticket for it - so I spent 1½ hour walking around and enjoying the Tivoli Christmas Market. The whole amusement park/garden is decorated with lights - all the places where you find flower beds and such in the summer is covered in lights in winter. Everywhere there are small shops selling things for Christmas (like decorations), and those that do not sell things for winter (like woollen sweaters) and those that do not sell stuff that might make nice Christmas presents. All the amusements are running, so if you want a rollercoaster ride in between two glasses of Glögg, you can have it. Only thing there wasn´t this year was snow, which is a shame, but this morning seems to more than make up for that...

So, the Cabaret: this year it was based around a Western theme - every year they have a different theme. Last year it was Dracula (as Vivienne McKee said at the beginning: "Last year we were in Transylvanian, which is ruled by a bloodthirsty, psycopathic maniac - but this year we are in the United States of America!"), the year before that it was Ancient Rome and so forth... This year is the fifth time I have gone to see it, and I have yet to see the same theme twice, though the list of previous shows on the homepage shows quite a few repetitions...

Anyway, Western. As we open we are in the small town of Gravestone. There is an election for sherif: who will win - newcomer John F. Ketchup or the old sherif Gorge W. Brush? With a single vote: Ketchup. Yipee! Alas, he gets shot by the evil Burrito brothers on that very day, so Brush is sherif. A month later Ketchup´s daughter comes to town seeking revenge for her father, since Brush has done nothing about catching the murderers (he has plans of attacking the Red Indian Camp nearby, since the natives are clearly supplying the mexican banditos with weapons - yeah, right, as if the banditos are running around with tomahawks...). She enlists the aid of a man with no name (well, he has one, but it is pretty unpronouncable and means something along the lines of "Teepee in need of roof repair") and the famous lawman Wyat Twerp, who has just ridden into town along with his friend, Doctor van Helsingør from Elsinore ("but you can call me Bent") - who is a recurring character who this year is, not Doc Holiday, but a doc on holiday.

The plot unfolds, as it turns out that not only has Gorge Brush (boooooh) won the Ketchup ranch in a game of poker (he cheated), but he is also in league with the Burrito brothers. Miss Ketchup and her allies must prepare for quite the fight...

Summarising a Crazy Christmas Cabaret is hard, because so many things happen on stage. Almost every line is a joke - quite a few of them (all right, maybe more than a few) double entendres. Doctor van Helsingør specialises in a strange gibberish - directly translating small bits of Danish into English. There is Miss Jolly Jumper - who is the Dame of this play (and in case you are not familiar with the term, that would be a big, fat man in drag) - she transforms halfway into a Mexican diva. The audience boohs at the villain (well, most of the audience - someone on the fourth row decided to shout hurrah a few times...) and calls yipee everytime the word cowboy is mentioned. We meet the Indians in the second act - poor chief Sitting Bull is worried about his son, Running Bear. He has heart troubles. Could Doctor Helsingør help him, "like this Doctor Phil I see on tv?" Of course he can. And you laugh, and clap, and have a splendid time - although if you have never seen a Crazy Christmas before you are adviced not to sit on the front row - they will tease you if you are a newcomer - nor in a place wherefrom they can pull you up on stage easily (unless you don´t mind that) - it is very much an audience participation show.

So, in case it is not made clear, I had myself a very funny evening yesterday - even made up for not getting any risengrød on Little Christmas Eve...