Because "the play's the thing!"

So Dr. Darling, who barely tolerates my blogging habit most days, turned to me last night and asked, "So have you written about the show yet?"

And once I got over the shock of the Swede showing actual interest in the content of this blog (rather than just the stats behind it), I was kind of embarrassed to admit that I hadn't...though I did mention it in passing while mobile blogging our Edinburgh trip.

The fact is that "the show" was the entire reason we went to Scotland in the middle of March in the first place. And French & Saunders: Still Alive was stupendously fantastic in our opinion, but we also freely admit to being (insert bad Scottish accent here) just a wee but biased.

I've been a rabid fan of British comedians Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders since the late 1980's when I accidently happened upon their first BBC television series on PBS. (PBS stations were the only source of BritCom in the midwestern U.S. at the time, and their scheduling a was a bit haphazard, to say the least.)

Dr. Darling (being a spring chicken and all) discovered them a bit later and got to see them more regularly  since Swedish TV imports a lot of BBC programming. They are brilliant individually (The Vicar of Dibley, Absolutely Fabulous) but even funnier together. Their last live tour was in 2000, and it was at a London performance that the Swede and I actually met in-person for the first time.

Because the "Still Alive" tour is expected to be their last performing as a sketch comedy duo, the show had a "greatest hits" feel to it and most of the material was familiar to us (if not fully recite-able from memory).  Still, we were thrilled just to be in the same room with these two comedy goddesses, especially in the 4th row of the stalls.

So of course we went all the way to Edinburgh in the middle of March to see them, and if any London dates are added later this spring, we'll happily head there to see them again!

tags: dawn french  jennifer saunders  french and saunders  british comedy  

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