Lemon Tree Studio – 1998

“A banquet of belly-laughs.. superbly performed..if you can get a ticket for it, you’ll be very lucky.”

—Press & Journal

“Weel, it wiz different.”

— Craig’s Dad

Anticipation (coupled with anxiety, leavened with a touch of raw fear) was the watchword as The Flying Pigs taxied down the runway for the first time. As a new company performing new material in an unfamiliar theatre, we really had no idea what to expect. This didn’t make it easy to sell tickets.

Us –            “Will you buy a ticket?”

Punter –    “What can I expect?”

Us –            “We really have no idea.”

Would the audience laugh? And if so, would they laugh at the bits they were supposed to laugh at, or at the travesty unfolding before them? Nor were jangling nerves soothed by a shocker of a technical rehearsal during which it became clear that we had created a show with more lighting and sound cues than an evening out with Jean Michel Jarre. When the first night audience was bid welcome to the “Dress Rehearsal” which later concluded with a bow taken to the strains of “The Great Escape” little did they know that we were not entirely joking.

Here are a couple of blasts from our past. Among the highlights of Last Tango in Powis was Oor Faither featuring Craig as God and John as a bloke in a hard hat. Another was what turned out to be the first of many times that we met Archie & Davie.

And here’s the programme, featuring original cast member Scott Christie on the cover.

Reviews were mixed. Well, we got two, and one was a stinker.

“Laddish, lacking in subtlety and reliant on the pantomiming of bodily functions.” said the Evening Express in an uncharacteristically accurate piece of journalism.

“A banquet of belly-laughs…superbly performed…if you can get a ticket for it, you’ll be very lucky.” said the P&J, enthusiastically.

“When’s the next one?” said a gratifyingly large number of the audience.

And perhaps most importantly of all;

“You’ve haven’t lost money.” said the manager of the Lemon Tree.

So we partied, in the Mudd Club of all places, where Greg – not normally an energetic exponent of dance – gave an interpretation of “Brimful of Asha” so spirited that he broke the glasses of a startled bystander. Sorry Kenny.

 

Cast
Scott Christie
Shirley Cummings
John Hardie
Oli Knox
Fiona Lussier
Craig Pike
Dave Quaite

Written by
Greg Gordon
Andrew Brebner
Additional Material by
Grant Campbell
John Hardie
Ewan MacGillivray
Charles Sandison

Directed By
John Hardie

Sponsors
Jock’s Bar
Enterprise Oil
Marathon Oil U.K. Ltd
Raeburn Christie

What the Papers Said

Aberdeen Press & Journal, 20/2/98

‘The newly formed Flying Pig Productions is the only company with the foresight and the common decency to supply me with a ready made review in the back of their programme. “Every word was a gem”, it read, “it’s the order they were put in that worried me”. After laughing all the way through Flying Pigs’ first hilarious comedy revue, Last Tango In Powis, at the Lemon Tree Studio Theatre last night, I’m more than happy to agree with the first part of that quote. Written by Andrew Brebner and Greg Gordon, and directed by John Hardie, this show is precisely what happens when talent and material boil over during the preparation for the Aberdeen Students Charities Show. Not that Last Tango is a light snack of mouldy leftovers. Anything but, this show is a banquet of belly laughs that will leave you completely stuffed. Superbly performed by Scott Christie, Shirley Cummings, John Hardie, Oli Knox, Fiona Lussier, Craig Pike and Dave Quaite, Last Tango takes a swipe at everything from the legal profession to sleekit flatulence. But first and foremost, it is a North-east show and it doesn’t care who knows it. It runs until Saturday at The Lemon Tree and if you can get a ticket for it, you’ll be extremely lucky.’

 

Next show: Where Seagulls Dare – 1999