Bare cheek: What was that

Can’t remember the name of a book, film, piece of music or thing? Mike Hunter is the man with the answers…

Dear Mike,
Back at my teacher training college, many moons ago, me and my friends went to see our staff drama society do a play that has really stayed with me. If only I could say the same about the title!

It was a late Victorian drawing-room comedy, a sort of well-mannered farce – all very silly – about some young Oxford students, one of whom, for a host of improbable reasons, must drag up to pretend to be his friend’s rich, elderly aunty. They get into all sorts of scrapes and the whole thing is an absolute hoot; we all rocked with laughter. I still giggle when I think about it, even today.

I am now a drama teacher, and am looking for a play for my sixth form students to do next term, and thought this would be ideal. Could you please put me out of my misery and remind me of the title because I can’t find any reference to it anywhere.

Yours, Thomas Brandon,
Lewes

Dear Thomas,
Forgive me, but you’ll think yourself a proper ‘Charley’ and maybe even suspect you ‘Aunt’ fit to do your job when I tell you that the play in question – the most successful stage comedy of all time – is, of course, none other than The Persecution And Assassination Of Jean-Paul Marat As Performed By The Inmates Of The Asylum Of Charenton Under The Direction Of The Marquis De Sade by Peter Weiss.

Keep those queries coming in!

Lots of love,
Mike. x

Bramwell to be privatised?

Local writer, musician, and polymath David Bramwell is to be privatised if the Conservatives win the next election claims Michael Gooley, a tory MP who will be standing for the Hanover and Elm Grove seat in 2015.

“We would float him on the stock market,” said Gooley (48) “and then move production to India, where labour is cheaper, allowing for greatly-increased numbers of one-man shows, cheeky guides, albums and that Mexican thing where everybody pretends to like their neighbours.”

When asked if Bramwell would retain his old name and image, Gooley said, “that’s something that we’ll have to decide. Obviously the old brand has quite a lot of recognition, but I’m in favour of a punchy new name like ‘Bam!’ or ‘Zoink!’.”

Brighton celebrities have been successfully privatised in the past: in 2007 Treason Show head honcho Mark Brailsford was bought by Glaxosmithkline for an undisclosed sum, and in 2009 local songstress Eliza Skelton was privatised, allowing an additional 417,000 people to fancy her.