This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tommy: I butt dialed you from the bar last night.

[0:02] Jimi: Right, okay.

[0:02] Tommy: I wondered what that was.

[0:03] Jimi: Do you know what?

[0:04] Tommy: It would and do you know what?

[0:05] Jimi: Uh huh.

[0:06] Tommy: You were the third person to call me.

[0:08] Jimi: What?

[0:08] Tommy: While I was asleep.

[0:09] Jimi: What?

[0:10] Tommy: Right. I had a FaceTime from my friend Andrew, who was getting really excited because Neil Patrick Harris is now being told he's starring in the series of unfortunate events.

[0:19] Jimi: Oh, I didn't know.

[0:20] Tommy: Netflix show.

[0:21] Jimi: That's awesome.

[0:21] Tommy: Right. That is so exciting.

[0:23] Jimi: Yeah.

[0:23] Tommy: So obviously he FaceTimed me.

[0:25] Jimi: Right.

[0:25] Tommy: While I was asleep. And that was when I woke up, I woke up to that like really weird. And then I got just a cold call from an unknown number.

[0:33] Jimi: Uh huh.

[0:33] Tommy: And then you from on Facebook.

[0:35] Jimi: I didn't even know Facebook did phone calls.

[0:39] Tommy: Hey, they do.

[0:41] Jimi: And your butt wants to talk to me.

[0:47] Tommy: Somebody get us another drink. I'm eating soup, so if this turns into an ASMR video.

[0:52] Jimi: This is between you having the flu and me having a cold, I think this is just gonna be great audio throughout the whole thing.

[1:02] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:02] Jimi: There's gonna be lots of like throughout it.

[1:05] Tommy: Actually, the even the little like mouth bits are annoying me, so I'm just gonna turn my level down.

[1:11] Jimi: Woo Okay, well, hey, we're back.

[1:14] Tommy: We're back. Happy New Year, Jimmy.

[1:16] Jimi: Happy New Year.

[1:17] Tommy: Did you have a good holiday?

[1:19] Jimi: I did. There was lots of lots of celebrating, lots of revelry.

[1:25] Tommy: Lots of mirth.

[1:26] Jimi: Lots of mirth, plenty of mirth.

[1:27] Tommy: Good. I love a good mirthy holiday.

[1:29] Jimi: Lots of lots of frankincense. How about you?

[1:31] Tommy: Um yeah, it was great. It was great.

[1:34] Jimi: That's but that's better to report. I feel like do you feel like this cause see as you're like growing up, the holidays just become more about like that was a nice meal.

[1:42] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:43] Jimi: Um and less about anything else.

[1:45] Tommy: Yeah, that's what it's like, well, I got you know, I got to sleep. Like makes me feel very old man, very beardy. And then we get back and everyone's asked, like, Oh, how was your holiday? And you're like, eh.

[1:56] Jimi: You're like, yeah, I got nothing not I have nothing to share with you.

[1:59] Tommy: I go to work and people like, did you do anything fun? And I'm like, mmm, I mean, yeah.

[2:04] Jimi: Fun for me.

[2:06] Tommy: In the sense I did nothing.

[2:07] Jimi: Yeah.

[2:07] Tommy: So are you back at work, man?

[2:08] Jimi: I am back at work. We are. I'm in between Bring It On and Bye Bye Birdie.

[2:14] Tommy: And it's going great.

[2:15] Jimi: Hooray. From your visual right now, it looks like you're really happy.

[2:20] Tommy: It's so much all at once. They re-ran that Layman Memoranda 60 Minutes special about him where he talks about the two musicals he's written.

[2:29] Jimi: Right.

[2:30] Tommy: In the Heights and Hamilton.

[2:32] Jimi: You know, the two musicals.

[2:33] Tommy: Oh, wait, wait, did he only say Oh, right? I just figured it was then from Bring It On Day, but no.

[2:37] Jimi: It's my favorite thing in the world. They were like, he doesn't even talk about this show.

[2:41] Tommy: And I was like, I know. It is weird how yeah.

[2:44] Jimi: But I mean, fair enough. Come on.

[2:46] Tommy: I wouldn't talk about it.

[2:48] Jimi: I know. But actually, do you know what's interesting? It's like um sometime, you know, he'll still defend the frogs.

[2:55] Tommy: He's a proud man. And he keeps beating that seesaw dead horse.

[3:00] Jimi: Which he's just gotta let that go.

[3:03] Tommy: Exactly. Anything do you have to let go of Sunday?

[3:05] Jimi: And one of them is bad musicals.

[3:08] Tommy: Not bad. Just not the best music.

[3:11] Jimi: Not as good.

[3:12] Tommy: Not as good. You can do better work.

[3:14] Jimi: Right.

[3:14] Tommy: Showcase your better work.

[3:15] Jimi: Right. But what we're talking about today.

[3:17] Tommy: It's Kander and Ebb month, apparently.

[3:19] Jimi: It's Kander and Ebb Month.

[3:22] Tommy: That sounds like a a song made right.

[3:24] Jimi: Before we talk about Cabaret, we have to talk about our trivia question from from yestertime. Some people got it right. I've got I know Emily sent us a Twitter message. I got a Tumblr message from Saxman 481 again.

[3:39] Tommy: Oh, Saxman!

[3:40] Jimi: Saxman Saxman's getting them. He's doing he's the one to beat guys.

[3:44] Tommy: A frequent frequent caller. Well, I've lost my mobile, so that's right.

[3:47] Jimi: I got it, I got it.

[3:48] Tommy: Oh, yeah, check online. I forget you can access the internet on the internet.

[3:52] Jimi: Oh yeah. Ian got it just under the wire.

[3:57] Tommy: Well done. Bravo. So what was the answer?

[4:00] Jimi: Yeah. Well, the question was after Auld Lang Syne, which Kander and Ebb song is played in Times Square every New Year's.

[4:07] Tommy: And the key, the key to this question, Jimmy, is you have to know that Times Square is in New York City.

[4:15] Jimi: And I didn't know that.

[4:17] Tommy: I didn't know it. I've heard about it once or twice, this place, Times Square.

[4:21] Jimi: And I wasn't worried about it. I was like, something to do with time.

[4:25] Tommy: Oh, I don't know. Some sort of some sort of shape time time triangle.

[4:30] Jimi: Time rectangle.

[4:30] Tommy: So I thought it was something to do with space, so I thought it was Space Oddity. But if a bow, the late great Dave About.

[4:37] Jimi: And the answer, of course, is New York, New York.

[4:37] Tommy: New York, New York. Who knew by the way that Kander and Ebb wrote that?

[4:45] Jimi: Who knew? And that Liza Minnelli sings it every chance she gets.

[4:50] Tommy: Exactly. She wakes up in the morning halfway through the song.

[4:54] Jimi: Stars and off she goes, shaking about the place.

[4:57] Tommy: I don't know if I'll put this in, but when they play Liza Minnelli singing New York, New York at the gay bar, right before the key change, and it goes down tempo and she goes, My little town balloons. The if I'll see maybe I can find the video. She does this thing with her hand where it like goes back and forth very rapidly.

[5:17] Jimi: And the whole bar yells Show us how you masturbate.

[5:23] Tommy: The funniest damn thing. Is this this magical bar in Chicago that you always talk about?

[5:28] Jimi: It's the magical bar in Chicago that has musical Mondays that I butt dialed you from.

[5:31] Tommy: Right. Oh wait, this is what oh great. I was so honored that I was there. But I did, it wasn't, they weren't playing musicals because it wasn't Monday.

[5:39] Jimi: Oh boring.

[5:41] Tommy: I would never go. So yeah, New York, New York. I love it. So yeah, well done, those who got that. But we already told you what we're actually talking about, right?

[5:48] Jimi: Cabaret.

[5:54] Tommy: What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play. Life is at Cabaret, old chum. Come to the cabaret.

[6:12] Jimi: The seminal Kander and Ebb piece. Would you would you call it their best musical?

[6:16] Tommy: I think it's their best musical.

[6:18] Jimi: Yeah.

[6:19] Tommy: Yeah. Sorry. I was like, yeah, that was like I should think about that answer. But no, completely.

[6:25] Jimi: Yeah. Completely and utterly. Do you like it? Do you like it more than Chicago?

[6:30] Tommy: I do. Yeah.

[6:31] Jimi: I do. It's weird. So I mean we'll we'll get into this obviously as we chat. But Cabaret, if I ever attribute something getting me into musical theater, it's Cabaret.

[6:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[6:41] Jimi: It was the first film that my dad showed me.

[6:45] Tommy: Really?

[6:46] Jimi: Yeah. Because my dad like does this interesting thing where he'll just like be like, you should watch this.

[6:50] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[6:50] Jimi: It's like different points in my life, as if like you're ready now. So one of them is Cabaret. That's one of his like all-time favorite films. Other one was Rocky Horror as well. That came really at a later stage, yeah.

[7:01] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[7:02] Jimi: And he's like, you're ready. And I like you know, I mean, I do love them. So yeah, I would. What would you say? Would you agree? Would you say it was?

[7:09] Tommy: I find both Cabaret and Chicago so interesting because they both had the same journey. Like their original productions were very, very different from the productions we know them for now.

[7:22] Jimi: And it's weird to me that that's a thing that Kander and Ebb shows do.

[7:26] Tommy: I know. I'm so excited for the Visit movie.

[7:29] Jimi: And then in twenty forty-five.

[7:32] Tommy: And it's it's a very reduced introduction. Bob Fosse inspired choreography.

[7:38] Jimi: Exactly. I know Bob Fosse will return somehow and do the choreography with Chita Rivera, who will probably still be alive.

[7:45] Tommy: She'll probably still be there kicking about.

[7:47] Jimi: She's gonna need a new hip if she's gonna do that choreography.

[7:50] Tommy: I mean.

[7:51] Jimi: I don't think so. I think her hips are made of Adamantium.

[7:54] Tommy: Like she's the Wolverine of Musical Theatre.

[7:57] Jimi: Honestly though, it's true. It is true. Chita Rivera is the Wolverine of Musical Theatre. Because I actually I got to see her in Druid.

[8:05] Tommy: And I couldn't believe what I was watching.

[8:07] Jimi: She's so good.

[8:08] Tommy: She's so good. Telling my friends stuff like, do you realize our age? Please just think about her age while she's doing these kicks.

[8:15] Jimi: Oh, it's unstoppable.

[8:17] Tommy: But she wasn't in Cabaret.

[8:18] Jimi: She wasn't. Liza Minnelli was.

[8:20] Tommy: And this is this is the problem I have with all recordings of Cabaret. They don't have Liza Minnelli in them.

[8:28] Jimi: And it just makes me so sad.

[8:30] Tommy: See, I don't mind. I don't mind. I've yeah, I don't mind. Because I've now gotten to the the stage of peace in my life.

[8:39] Jimi: And I hope you get there too.

[8:40] Tommy: The post Liza piece.

[8:43] Jimi: Yeah, where it's like okay, I get the film and I get Liza and her greatness, but I also get why Sally Bowles is shit in British.

[8:53] Tommy: That's true.

[8:54] Jimi: That's true. In the musical, you know, and I appreciate them both. For maybe for our listeners who don't know, if you if your only experience of Cabaret is the film, you should know that the stage musical is is different.

[9:07] Tommy: It's very different.

[9:09] Jimi: Very different. It's it's I'm trying to like compare it to another like movie adaptation, but I can't actually think of anything that's as stretched.

[9:18] Tommy: It's not different in a bad way. I mean, I think the movie's fabulous.

[9:21] Jimi: Did it win Oscars? Because I know Fosse won.

[9:24] Tommy: I was looking at this earlier. Best director and best actress and best supporting actor.

[9:29] Jimi: It did not win best film.

[9:31] Tommy: It didn't win best picture.

[9:32] Jimi: Okay. Wow, this Wikipedia article takes a lot of liberties.

[9:37] Tommy: Today Cabaret is considered one of the greatest musical films ever.

[9:42] Jimi: Wow. I'd say that's true.

[9:44] Tommy: Has it got a citation for that one?

[9:46] Jimi: It has three citations for that.

[9:48] Tommy: For that quote. It's on a bunch of top movie musical lists. And it's a great movie musical. It's just different.

[9:54] Jimi: It is different from the stage play. The stage play is much less about Sally Bowles.

[9:59] Tommy: I what I think the movie does, or what I think the movie did, was it was almost like the original production was the workshop.

[10:08] Jimi: Yeah.

[10:09] Tommy: And then Fosse was like, great effort, guys. Honestly, that was such a good effort. I'll just show you how it's done.

[10:16] Jimi: Exactly.

[10:16] Tommy: And then he put his obviously masterful genius spin on it.

[10:21] Jimi: Uh huh.

[10:22] Tommy: And made it what it was supposed to be.

[10:24] Jimi: Mm-hmm.

[10:25] Tommy: Because everything that's come after has been influenced by the movie.

[10:29] Jimi: Absolutely.

[10:30] Tommy: And not the original production. It is stunning to me that Maybe This Time was not a song originally written for Cabaret.

[10:39] Jimi: Exactly. I think that's such an interesting fact that I think a lot of people might not even realize if if you've not seen the musical.

[10:45] Tommy: Yeah.

[10:45] Jimi: Maybe This Time wasn't it? It was it was w was it written, I think it written for Liza.

[10:49] Tommy: I believe it was written for an unproduced musical.

[10:53] Jimi: Like really.

[10:54] Tommy: It started off as a trunk song that they threw in, you know, I mean, threw in doesn't doesn't do it justice, but that they just put in the movie.

[11:04] Jimi: That's so interesting. The difference between Maybe This Time at the beginning and Cabaret at the end, it just like the song Cabaret doesn't work without Maybe This Time.

[11:13] Tommy: Well, I again I disagree because I'm at that piece. I meant the piece level. So that I think when when Sally Bowles is there as this kind of foil to Cliff.

[11:25] Jimi: Yeah.

[11:26] Tommy: It she you know, you don't she doesn't need to have an 11 o'clock number. Because that isn't her purpose.

[11:31] Jimi: If you know what I mean. Does that make sense?

[11:33] Tommy: You disagree?

[11:34] Jimi: I don't know. I st I struggle with stage play Sally Bowles a lot.

[11:39] Tommy: Okay, it's all great. This is this is good. Talk to me.

[11:41] Jimi: I'm not I'm not satisfied with any of the portrayals I've seen of her, and I don't think that's the actress's fault. I think it's a very it's a multifaceted character that like doesn't come off well in the book.

[12:00] Tommy: Like there's not it's hard to take the piece that is Cabaret and portray everything that Sally Bowles needs to be in the time she gets on stage, I guess.

[12:13] Jimi: Okay. So what what do you think what do you think she needs to achieve then?

[12:16] Tommy: I think I don't know. I know what I struggle with. I know she comes off as like from the very beginning, she comes off as annoying and overly coquettish and like just it it is a struggle to see how Cliff falls in love with this annoying, annoying girl throughout the thing.

[12:39] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[12:40] Tommy: And she needs to have this air of mystery and air of like this the you know whole carpe diem about her, like let's let's live today for today that makes her wonderful and mysterious, and then to watch that suddenly fall down throughout the whole show. But because we're focusing on the the much more important B plot of um the older couple whose name I always forget.

[12:57] Jimi: Schneider and...

[12:57] Jimi: Schultz.

[12:57] Tommy: Schneider and Herr Schultz.

[13:13] Tommy: Because and that's the much more important story, but because we're focusing on that, we don't get the time to see Sally be this mysterious figure, you know, filled with sexual intrigue.

[13:25] Jimi: Okay. So I'm gonna pause it something to you.

[13:27] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[13:27] Jimi: Allow me to pause it.

[13:29] Tommy: I will I will allow you to pause it.

[13:31] Jimi: Let's enter into a parallel universe, okay. Where Tommy has not seen Liza Minnelli play Sally Bowles in the film adaptation of Cabaret.

[13:41] Jimi: Okay. That's absolutely the problem. It's that's that's what I was saying about you have to you have to let them exist in different worlds because Liza does it so well. A because she's Liza. Right, exactly. But B because it's a different role. It's a different part. But it's still the the the scene I struggle with is the uh moving out scene. You know, the where we discover that either in the in the stage play it's really ambiguous, whether she was actually pregnant or had an abortion or what, but baby be gone, and whether she's gonna go with Cliff, and in the stage play, it just feels like melodrama. It just feels like, you know, oh boo who we're watching some arty French film, and I I struggle to get into it, and then Cabaret follows, which is supposed to be this like big moving, wonderful number, and it's written that way, but I just, you know, she got her commuppance if she's not a like likable character.

[14:42] Tommy: So interesting. Just gonna completely disagree. This is good. This is a good moment. People have been wanting us to have this. And I mean, I don't I don't think it's like I have yet to see or find the production that does it perfectly exactly how I wanted. I have struggles with the film as well. Um kind of around the same thing. I just and I think part of it is I don't know what I want to. Yeah, this is it. It's like you feel like oh you're on to something, but it's I don't know how to how to do it.

[15:14] Jimi: Have you ever seen Jane Horrocks do it?

[15:16] Tommy: No.

[15:17] Jimi: I think it was London. I don't think 1994. It is wait, is is she the telecast one? Because there's a there's a an early 90s telecast that I saw bits and pieces of. Um UK one.

[15:30] Tommy: Yeah, UK. It would at the end changed all at the Dunmar.

[15:33] Jimi: At the Dalmar.

[15:34] Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I think I don't know if I saw if it was her. It was definitely um Alan Cumming.

[15:41] Jimi: Uh no, the th yeah, uh Alan Cumming. You would you would know.

[15:45] Tommy: Okay. You would know. Um because it's everything it needs to be. Jane Horrocks is a fantastic actress. Uh-huh. Right. Really, really great actress. And I think she's the best one to watch to see if if you're like weaning yourself off the movie.

[16:05] Jimi: Uh-huh. Because she's so different from Liza vocally that you you can't compare them. And I'll put I'll put her cabaret in the show notes.

[16:18] Tommy: Okay.

[16:19] Jimi: Because it's No, I have. She's the she she screams through the end of cabaret.

[16:23] Tommy: Yeah. Yes.

[16:24] Jimi: Yeah, I have seen not change your life. I thought she was great. I I still there's something, and maybe it's just in the script, but there's something so whiny and flippant about Sally.

[16:39] Tommy: I I get uh, but that's that's her. She's divine decadence, you know. I mean, she she you don't need to like her, I feel I don't think you really need to like many of the characters in this because they're all so flawed, uh and apart from MC who exists in his own world, but that's the whole thing is that they all have this view of the world as it stands in Weimar, you know, Germany, that is not the right one, and the only way that you can kind of have the right view is you have to go through it and you have to be where we are now looking back.

[17:15] Jimi: Yeah. That was a little bit of a tangent, but I think I don't know, from for me, she is uh unstoppable. Like it she gives me shivers, shakes, everything.

[17:26] Tommy: Yeah.

[17:27] Jimi: And it works in tandem so well with Alan Cumming.

[17:30] Tommy: I mean, yeah. Let's should we pause for a minute and just talk about Alan Cumming?

[17:33] Jimi: Alan Cumming. Have you seen um the Candor Neb Kennedy Award Center performance?

[17:40] Tommy: I've not actually no.

[17:41] Jimi: It's awesome. They do they bring out it's Alan Cumming doing uh Vilcoman with the with the Chicago girls. Um and they're honoring Candoraneb and a bunch of stuff, and he gets through the first verse and he goes to Cabaret or Cabaret. Ladies and gentlemen, the original MC, Tony and Oscar winner, Joel Gray. And he spins around, and behind him is Joel Gray.

[18:14] Tommy: Oh, that's beautiful.

[18:15] Jimi: It's amazing. And then they do the and then he does his thing, and just to see the contrast of these two wonderfully different actors playing the same role, like on opposite ends of the spectrum.

[18:29] Tommy: Exactly.

[18:30] Jimi: Is amazing.

[18:31] Tommy: Yeah, the MC is such a wonderfully written role because it's barely been written. It's one of my dream roles.

[18:40] Jimi: I would love to do it.

[18:40] Tommy: Right. It's it's same with me, same with me, because uh there's only a few roles that I'd be like, oh, I would I would do that. I would love to do that at one point.

[18:48] Jimi: Yeah.

[18:49] Tommy: And the MC is completely at the top because it's just so fascinating.

[18:55] Jimi: Yeah. You can do whatever you want with him. I mean, I think the MC embodies what made Cabaret a revolutionary musical. Like the combination of the the the first concept musical in a lot of ways.

[19:08] Tommy: The first concept, yeah, uh huh.

[19:09] Jimi: Was the this kind of blending of narrative and I don't know, existentialism.

[19:14] Tommy: Yeah, he's kind of like the foreshadow to like something like the leading player or something like that.

[19:18] Jimi: For sure. Because he's so he's just so ambiguous, but so powerful.

[19:23] Tommy: Yeah.

[19:24] Jimi: He has so much power on that stage. His status is non-existent because it's too high. Like it's fascinating.

[19:31] Tommy: That's amazing.

[19:34] Jimi: And I I mean Alan Cumming. Obviously, Joel Grey is the epitome.

[19:38] Tommy: Right.

[19:39] Jimi: And he's because he's Joel Grey, is it he originated it? He's he is AMC. But then Alan Cumming took he is, I would say like contemporary cabaret. Do you know what I mean? Is the cabaret for the world that we live in at the moment.

[19:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[19:53] Jimi: Which is very, very different to the 60s.

[19:55] Tommy: Yeah.

[19:56] Jimi: And he does it so goddamn well. It's so wonderful. It's it's terrifying.

[20:02] Tommy: Like it's weird.

[20:04] Jimi: So I mean, you know my feelings about bootlegs. Cabaret is one of the very few music bootleg because it it just watching him that's saying is I don't really care about the production. I do. The production of the main talk about that. It's just looking at Alan Cumming.

[20:16] Tommy: And his face.

[20:17] Jimi: Exactly. That I mean, that first revival at the Donmar, I think is the like that's changed cabaret for good.

[20:24] Tommy: Oh, absolutely.

[20:25] Jimi: You can't you can't do it the old-fashioned way anymore.

[20:28] Tommy: You can, because you'd just be like, that's enough.

[20:30] Jimi: It's just not well. And the number of things they rewrote and they made it so much more pointed and heavy and just wonderful.

[20:38] Tommy: And that's the thing. So I guess let's let's talk a bit about kind of cabaret as a concept musical, cabaret is a book musical, because it's it's the two sides of the coin.

[20:47] Jimi: Well, because it so it started out as it was going to be basically a cabaret. A bunch of cabaret songs with the plot interspersed throughout it, but in very separate worlds.

[20:59] Tommy: Yeah.

[21:00] Jimi: And that slowly devolved into the cabaret we have today, where there's this wonderful blending of the Kit Kat Club and what's going on in the outside world.

[21:12] Tommy: And I I don't know how you feel about it.

[21:14] Jimi: Uh huh. I think like the book part is really math.

[21:18] Tommy: Um I ca I I think it was the Donmar that did it first where they they kept it all in the cabaret.

[21:26] Jimi: Yeah.

[21:26] Tommy: Well is that right? They they made it much more ambiguous.

[21:31] Jimi: Right.

[21:31] Tommy: Because they like staged the you know conversations between Herr Schultz and Floyd Schneider in that yeah, it was it was it was ambiguous.

[21:40] Jimi: It was like, is this happening? Are the characters right? Don't know. But that I mean, I think that's where a lot of the concept comes from, even in the original. While it may not have been like I think the the original production was a little more cut and dry, like we are outside the cabaret right now, and a little more um like less representational in its design of it.

[21:58] Tommy: Yeah, but then you'd immediately go into a song by the MC commenting on the thing that just happened, presumably down the street across the city.

[22:08] Jimi: Exactly, yeah.

[22:09] Tommy: But I I like the kind of Sam Mendes way of keeping it all in in the one place because it's I think for the the content that you're dealing with, yeah, it almost makes it more believable.

[22:22] Jimi: Is that it's like with Kenya talked about earlier a little bit with Sweeney Todd, is is that political theater where you're really hitting an audience hard with these issues. You don't want them to buy into this lovely romance story of Herr Schultz and Ferling Schneider because you you just want to understand why it's so crap, what happens to them. You know what I mean? It's the only way to experience, the history.

[22:46] Tommy: Like we you can talk about the situations that led up to World War II until your face is blue, and until you're sitting in the audience at some art piece like cabaret, you as a person with a soul is not gonna have that sense of how we got there and what it felt like and all that stuff.

[23:05] Jimi: And that's the beautiful thing about cabaret. It is it's that feeling. I I just you don't get that feeling anywhere else.

[23:13] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:13] Jimi: I I don't think I'd be moved by a piece of theatre and like shaken that much until I saw I saw the Will Young one.

[23:23] Tommy: But it Oh, it's wonderful.

[23:25] Jimi: That moment when uh the MC goes, you know, where are your troubles now?

[23:30] Tommy: Yeah, it's wonderful. Because he's he's he promises at the very beginning, we have you know, all your troubles will be gone. We have no troubles here. And at the very end, see you're not worried about your life now.

[23:42] Jimi: But also, I think in a little flip side way, um, of because there's I've I've watched a few recently while I've been researching, and between because he did two productions because he went to Broadway, uh-huh, and the change from the Donmar to Broadway is really interesting because he delivers it completely differently.

[24:02] Tommy: Yeah, so Donmar, he's a a lot more playful and coy until he can I like reveal what happens?

[24:09] Jimi: Is yeah, that's right, because it's not gonna be all again.

[24:11] Tommy: I mean yeah, yeah.

[24:12] Jimi: He um when he takes off the the jacket and he's like really coy and playful and teasy until that point, then on Broadway, uh huh, he almost is speaking like a Gestapo guard, um, and it's a lot more forceful.

[24:28] Tommy: So instead of like sort of saying, like you said, like you, you know, you guys, you have no troubles, he's doing it the opposite, and saying you're not allowed to have troubles here, you're not allowed to question anything that's going on.

[24:40] Jimi: That's really interesting, and it's so forceful the way he says it, and that's why I'm like Alan Cumming, my hat goes off to you.

[24:46] Tommy: Because the same character.

[24:47] Jimi: Same character. Same character, same style, delivered in two completely different ways, and that is fascinating.

[24:53] Tommy: That's just what makes it a wonderful show. Just give me like 90% Alan Cumming in the show notes.

[25:01] Jimi: It's such it it doesn't. This is why I've I've in contemplating the Chicago comparison, I find it so interesting. What one of the big changes they made while writing Chicago was removing the central narrator role and distributing it among the chorus.

[25:20] Tommy: If you have ever seen Chicago or even the movie, all the narration is done by various members of the chorus, like, and now, you know, the six merry murderesses and they're different people.

[25:29] Jimi: That used to be one role where Cabaret succeeds very, very much around this one central narrative, really ambiguous but filled with character person.

[25:43] Tommy: It's weird, you can you go along in the journey, you buy into the MC so much, and he can get away with anything because of his status.

[25:50] Jimi: He's just like, I am going for it, mate.

[25:53] Tommy: Oh, it's wonderful. And then at the end, when he s becomes a human, I guess, you're just you kinda you're like, ah, my I need my lifeline, I need you, and he's not there anymore, and you're just left to face look this is what happens.

[26:07] Jimi: Yeah, when you've you've already watched every single other character in the thing get their life destroyed.

[26:13] Tommy: Exactly.

[26:14] Jimi: And you're like, I don't, you know, I don't know anything about the MC.

[26:18] Tommy: I know I know nothing about him.

[26:19] Jimi: How can I possibly care about him?

[26:21] Tommy: And you absolutely do, and it's the worst thing in the world.

[26:25] Jimi: Do not care much.

[26:42] Tommy: Very much.

[26:48] Jimi: What about I don't care much? What do what are your feelings about his number, his his 11 o'clock number?

[26:55] Tommy: Uh see, I have to like think about it in my mind.

[26:59] Jimi: I don't even remember it.

[27:01] Tommy: So I don't care much. I think was brought into the London revival.

[27:06] Jimi: Okay.

[27:06] Tommy: Um it's on the original Broadway.

[27:09] Jimi: Uh huh.

[27:09] Tommy: Um as like a footnote. It's it wasn't in the production.

[27:13] Jimi: Um and then they brought it into the London production.

[27:18] Jimi: And it's basically it's the MC basically singing "I Don't Care Much." It's this beautiful kind of dirge style. Um, I gotta listen to this song again. And it's really haunting, very, very chilling. I don't I don't know if I've actually ever. It just might not have been on the, which is crazy. This is oh no, I have listened to this. I thought is the So when I watched the telecast, I interpreted his "I Don't Care Much" as he is singing for Sally.

[27:53] Tommy: How'd you mean for her?

[27:55] Jimi: Like, because what did we just come out of? Before "Cabaret." And it's so Cliff has just left. I can't remember if it's b if the scene if they are seen as between that or whether it's I think it I Because it'd be weird if they ran "I Don't Care Much" straight into "Cabaret," but maybe they But I think they do because it's her costume change song.

[28:12] Tommy: Right.

[28:13] Jimi: I interpreted it as this is because they put the MC in drag, because they're talking about Sally having been fired from "Cabaret" from the Kit Kat Club and then coming back. I had interpreted it as this was the MC singing a song that Sally normally sings.

[28:38] Tommy: Oh, interesting.

[28:39] Jimi: And that we're seeing this kind of weird mishmash into Sally's subconscious. I hadn't interpreted it at all as the MC's inner monologue, but who knows?

[28:51] Tommy: I, well, that's the thing. I'm trying to I'm trying to remember the first time the first example that I saw.

[28:57] Jimi: Oh, because I haven't seen this telecast yet.

[29:00] Tommy: Yeah, it's it's right after um they have the fight about the baby. Cliff tells her to wake up, we're going to America, he runs out, Sally goes back to the club. It's right before Cliff gets beat up at the club.

[29:14] Jimi: I had put it Send me what you're watching. It's the this is I think you have seen the telecast, and you don't know that you've seen the telecast.

[29:21] Tommy: I know what you're watching.

[29:23] Jimi: First one that I saw was Broadway.

[29:25] Tommy: Okay.

[29:25] Jimi: And I'm gonna send you that because it's different, and that's why I've interpreted it. This is one of the confusing things about "Cabaret." They've done so much reshuffling of all of the songs, like they can't decide, oh wow, this is very different.

[29:39] Tommy: Right.

[29:40] Jimi: So you'll understand what why I mean about it, and I can understand why you should have it.

[29:45] Tommy: That's crazy. We'll put both these videos in the show notes, folks.

[29:48] Jimi: Yeah. It's Alan Cumming singing this song both times at the same point in the play, but in one of them he's you know, nearly naked, wearing just a suspenders, and in the other one, he's entirely in drag with earrings and a dress.

[30:02] Tommy: That's really interesting.

[30:04] Jimi: Yeah. I love the song. I love it so much. I love singing it, and it's it's so full of emotion. And what I it's weird because I've spoken to a couple of my friends about it, uh-huh, and they don't like it because they think it humanizes MC.

[30:14] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[30:23] Jimi: Because it if you take it as his inner monologue, uh-huh, then you start to get a sense of him.

[30:23] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[30:31] Jimi: Which you know, they feel is like, uh you don't want that, you want him to remain this kind of ambiguous character.

[30:35] Tommy: Right.

[30:36] Jimi: I, on the other hand, love that. I love that because it's still the song itself, you know, it's called "I Don't Care Much," but you couldn't be spending more schmaltz and labor over singing it.

[30:48] Tommy: Exactly.

[30:48] Jimi: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and it's just as ambiguous as everything else he does, in my opinion. And that's why I love it. I'm just obsessed with it, because it's in like like with Justin, you can pull it in any kind of direction you want. Any kind of direction.

[31:01] Tommy: Yeah, and they have clearly. Same director, same actor, same production, basically, in two entirely different interpretations.

[31:09] Jimi: It's so good. So, yeah, the the non-drag one is the evil Gestapo Alan Cumming at the end. Um, and your one is Jane Horrocks.

[31:20] Tommy: Ah dear, she's so she's fine.

[31:20] Jimi: She's fine.

[31:25] Tommy: Hush, you're mine.

[31:26] Jimi: It's because it's because you're American. You hear because she's British. And I hate British people.

[31:33] Tommy: All the Brits.

[31:33] Jimi: Oh, she's just so good. I used to have a girlfriend Laura's Elsie.

[31:40] Tommy: With whom I shared four sordid wounds in Chelsea.

[31:45] Jimi: She wasn't watching Paul a blushing flower. It's a matter of fact. She rented by the hour. Interestingly enough, about "Cabaret." Um the song. Not the show. And talking about interpretations and things. One of my uh one of my friends, when they did it at school, they did it that uh she was having the abortion whilst singing "Cabaret."

[32:11] Tommy: Oh, I don't know, I don't like that.

[32:14] Jimi: Exactly. Too much.

[32:17] Tommy: Too much much.

[32:18] Jimi: Well that I I think that's the pre like that's the problem I have with this, the the version I sent you with their ending scene, is that so much of it is when it gets to the drama of it all, it's very much right on the nose. And I think, you know, that a lot of the show is about subtlety and about what's happening off stage. And so and that to me is so much more interesting. Is you know, you you can imagine all sorts of things, but once you put it on stage, then you're you're conceptualizing it in the audience's mind, which I think does you a disservice.

[32:50] Tommy: I know yeah, I do know what you mean. I think just by the end of the show though, it's all broken down, it's all gone to shit. I feel that you can take that breakdown because you know where it's headed.

[33:00] Jimi: Yeah.

[33:01] Tommy: The world around these guys is is breaking. So if you do "Cabaret" kind of Liza style, it's still keeping the fantasy, you're still feeling the fantasy.

[33:10] Jimi: I don't know. I will say, while I enjoy Liza Minnelli singing the song "Cabaret," I think Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles singing the song "Cabaret" in the movie "Cabaret" is not plot appropriate.

[33:26] Tommy: Yeah, exactly. It doesn't make any sense.

[33:28] Jimi: It's just a big celebration, uh like, you know, ha ha! But that's not, you know, Germany's like going all the shit. We shouldn't be celebrating. And it's weird because I think um well, Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the book that it was a kid loosely based on apparently hates Liza's portrayal. And I'm like, I get it. I can see that. I get it, Chris, because it's not the character that you wrote. Because the thing is, is that that wouldn't happen. She wouldn't be performing because she's just too talented.

[33:57] Tommy: Right.

[33:58] Jimi: What um these cabarets show is the kind of seedy side of Weimar Germany.

[34:04] Tommy: Yeah.

[34:04] Jimi: I'm I'm Weimar Germany obsessed. I this is my favorite era, and I think it's beautiful in a disgusting dark way. What the Kit Kat Club represents is this really kind of seedy, low talent, and they get it right at many points in the film, I feel, particularly with the chorus girls.

[34:22] Tommy: Yeah.

[34:22] Jimi: Because they just didn't have all of these kind of ugly women who were high on whatever, oh yeah, doing whatever, yeah, because it's the kind of only way they could make money, and that's kind of what they were doing. But because they were living in this fantasy world of decadence and everything was so schmaltzy and fabulous and you know, feathers, and it's the 30s.

[34:42] Tommy: Yeah.

[34:43] Jimi: They could kind of get away with it.

[34:44] Tommy: Exactly.

[34:45] Jimi: And that's what the Kit Kat Club is. And then then comes Liza and like knocks everyone out of the park, and you're like, why are you here?

[34:52] Tommy: Yeah, it's like, what the hell are you doing?

[34:54] Jimi: And anyone would get her out of there because they could make a million bucks off her rather than this kind of back end club. And I think that's always the little bit that's a little bit unbelievable in the show. But in the film, sorry. But that's okay. We forgive her because it's Liza.

[35:07] Tommy: That's the problem of the show is Sally Bowles is not supposed to be a good singer. Like in the in the plot of the thing, but as a if you're doing a musical in the real world, you don't want to have someone poorly sing these songs that are in this cabaret between world.

[35:27] Jimi: You don't think so?

[35:27] Tommy: But then no, I'm I'm totally fine with it. I'm saying sing flat, sing whatever, as long as you're acting it, as long as you're acting it, darling.

[35:35] Jimi: I just I I think you're gonna lose your audience.

[35:38] Tommy: But no, well then I'm thinking I don't want you in my audience because you're not you're not getting it's it's theatre, do you know what I mean? It doesn't need to be it doesn't need to be perfect.

[35:47] Jimi: Y if you think about I kind of ironically, um Lotte Lenya, who was Schneider in the original.

[35:55] Tommy: Yeah.

[35:55] Jimi: Obviously Lotte Lenya is the kind of Weimar Germany's angel from the you know the sixties. She i was in an original kind of thritney opera, and she is the this wonderful exemplar of what these people were like in that day. Sh I feel you know, and th she's notorious for not being able to sing that well.

[36:18] Tommy: Yeah.

[36:19] Jimi: But she sings because she goes for it and she's an actor and she acts her way through it. But I think like her character has the songs that are appropriate for that.

[36:30] Tommy: Right, and she's the thing is it's like she's she's old, so she doesn't necessarily need to sound that great either.

[36:35] Jimi: But what I th and again I'm gonna go back to Jane Horrocks because I think she does so well. I I trust Jane Horrocks as an actress. I've kind of looked at enough interviews with her to think that she's done it on purpose, or whether it was the kind of musical director who worked with her or vocal coach or whatever. But if you listen to her, in "Cabaret," you can hear it kind of throughout. But she's really listened to these these people who performed in the cabarets in Weimar Germany and that style of singing. Kind of flat and shouty.

[37:03] Tommy: Flat, shouty s lots of scopes and you know just sailing under the note at every opportunity.

[37:12] Jimi: And I I love that because that's what it was like at the time. I I don't want to I actually don't want to sit back and hear a lovely melody because it's I don't c I don't care. I'm just like I want you to shock me. And that's what that's what I mean at that stage when it gets to "Cabaret" the song um I'm ready for you to slap me across the face I've I've gone through it with you.

[37:36] Tommy: I could see that I think this is this is how we are going to direct our productions of "Cabaret" differently.

[37:41] Jimi: So differently yeah exactly exactly but that's it that's it you can do it however the hell you want and it's all it's all still like you're still gonna end up with a great product.

[37:59] Tommy: And the lady shopper doesn't even have an eating and I left them on it and I'm going on my own let's now I think now is the time to talk about "Cabaret" at school a lot of high schools do "Cabaret."

[38:18] Jimi: I was looking up these YouTube videos.

[38:20] Tommy: I know so scary it starts out super sexual.

[38:28] Jimi: It has to be super sexual for it to work.

[38:31] Tommy: It just has to be.

[38:32] Jimi: Exactly. It's what it is. I mean that it it's like is it is. It's what it is. These these cabarets were a way for you to kind of go and be dark and exact enter the the underworld and you're making children.

[38:46] Tommy: And it's so popular.

[38:48] Jimi: It's so and the like the now cut telephone song, which is basically like, hey, do you want a prostitute? I'm over here.

[38:54] Tommy: Yeah.

[38:56] Jimi: It's dark. It's the dark. Um, and the the choreography, the things that they're making these children do and where you know if you do "Two Ladies" in the modern version, you know, you're making a guy sing falsetto there really aren't you.

[39:13] Tommy: There's a lot of and like I'm I understand it. I'm also always for like we should never like you're if by the time you're in high school, I think you're at the point in in your life where you should be able to know everything about the world.

[39:31] Jimi: Asking high schoolers to do that on stage would make me uncomfortable.

[39:35] Tommy: I'd feel uncomfortable.

[39:36] Jimi: How can you like I'm happy to talk to you know, teenagers as a role model about these kind of issues, right?

[39:44] Tommy: Yeah, to make them then carry it out, it would I would not feel good about that.

[39:49] Jimi: Because the thing is, it was it would inhibit me as a director because I'd be like, I want you to grind up against each other, but I'm not gonna have to do it. But you feel uncomfortable last year.

[39:55] Tommy: Because you're 16.

[39:58] Jimi: Yeah, exactly. What is what is weird, I think back to asshole high school me. I would have loved to do "Cabaret."

[40:06] Tommy: Right.

[40:06] Jimi: Oh my god though. No, right, completely. For like for like exactly all those reasons. 100%.

[40:13] Tommy: But does that mean it's I know right here? I don't know. It's the awful, the awful paradox there. Um and I mean, like it it has other benefits too. It's about World War II. Like literally, to understand the show, you have to understand the history of World War II.

[40:29] Jimi: Exactly.

[40:30] Tommy: And what a wonderful way to learn history. Like I would enjoy that so much more than sitting in a world history class.

[40:37] Jimi: Oh god.

[40:38] Tommy: But just do "The Sound of Music." I was having this discussion with some friends the other day. How many musicals do the Nazis screw up? There are so many musicals where like Well, they don't screw up "The Producers."

[40:55] Jimi: But they do screw up the producers because he breaks his leg.

[40:58] Tommy: Well, they screw up the specific producers, but they don't screw up, you know.

[41:03] Jimi: The producers, the sound of music, cabaret, fiddler on the roof. Like clearly, if you want to write a hit musical, at the end of Act 1, the Nazis have to come in and smash everything.

[41:19] Tommy: That's a weird point, isn't it?

[41:20] Jimi: But yeah.

[41:21] Tommy: Yeah.

[41:21] Jimi: That's I guess.

[41:23] Tommy: Well, it's not like they're gonna come in and do something great, are they?

[41:27] Jimi: It's not like you're gonna get them in and then it's gonna be like happy times. You know what I mean?

[41:34] Tommy: If there's Nazis involved, it's probably not gonna be a bad news parents if the Nazis show up.

[41:39] Jimi: And with the exception of the producers, but you know, outliers.

[41:42] Tommy: Yeah.

[41:43] Jimi: Exactly.

[41:44] Tommy: Um and even then, you know, for them, um Oh my god, what are they called? Leo and um Max.

[41:49] Jimi: Max.

[41:52] Tommy: Uh it doesn't necessarily go well for them.

[41:55] Jimi: That's true, that's true.

[41:56] Tommy: So the Nazis were in that for them.

[41:58] Jimi: Um it's interesting, I don't know, I'm just making this parallel, it's ridiculous in my head. But about the producers.

[42:05] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[42:06] Jimi: And cabaret.

[42:07] Tommy: Uh um.

[42:08] Jimi: Because obviously Springtime for Hitler, the show, you know, it kind of serves a similar purpose, I guess, as cabaret, but in a kind of different tossed up form.

[42:22] Tommy: Well, I think I mean, I think one of the reasons why so often the Nazis are a plot point is because they're a very well understood kind of ticking time bomb.

[42:34] Jimi: Right.

[42:34] Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that.

[42:36] Jimi: Like the moment you know you're in like pre-World War II Germany, you're like, uh oh, problems abound.

[42:46] Tommy: None of this will last.

[42:47] Jimi: And they do it, you know, in their own subtle way, Kander and Ebb do it in the show. Like, uh, it's Wilkommen Bianvenu welcome, English, or uh German, French, English.

[43:00] Tommy: Like, we are we are the very first words of the show are foreshadowing the political happenings that are that are uh, you know, the stuff that's gonna hit the fan.

[43:11] Jimi: And then at the end, wonderfully, when he sings um, he never says goodbye.

[43:18] Tommy: He does not.

[43:19] Jimi: There is no English translation in the goodbye song that mirrors the welcome song, which is great.

[43:25] Tommy: Yeah, it's perfect.

[43:26] Jimi: That's the problem. Knowing that this is all gonna happen is what makes the subtlety, and like just that's where the book of this show is brilliant.

[43:34] Tommy: You know, watching uh what's his face getting his bag inspected on the train is just enough to set up this world we're entering.

[43:44] Jimi: Exactly. All you need.

[43:46] Tommy: I read a review um of I think it wasn't a ninety-four.

[43:52] Jimi: The one in between the ninety-four and the most recent one.

[43:54] Tommy: Uh huh.

[43:55] Jimi: Um in in London. And it just talked about you never stop feeling anxious.

[44:00] Tommy: Yeah.

[44:01] Jimi: Yeah, for sure. Do you know what I mean? From the start.

[44:03] Tommy: And that's so true.

[44:04] Jimi: It's just the whole way through you know something's coming.

[44:04] Tommy: You know something's coming in the terms of I know what happens in World War II.

[44:11] Jimi: Right.

[44:12] Tommy: But you know something's coming that you're not I don't know, it's just you know something you're not gonna like, and it put in that's you're constantly on edge.

[44:21] Jimi: So that you know, when you know, MC is singing two ladies or something, you know there's gonna be that sting in the tail, yeah, because they're just that's the that's the moral of this whole show is that there's that sting.

[44:35] Tommy: And it permeates through the whole production.

[44:37] Jimi: I mean, the moment that MC comes out and is like, Do you feel good? and points at you audience member, I bet you do.

[44:45] Tommy: We now know, like that fourth wall, not there at all.

[44:49] Jimi: And at any moment someone's gonna come up to you and involve you in the show, and like you're stuck here and you're already anxious even without all the World War II connotations.

[45:00] Tommy: Yeah, that's so good.

[45:02] Jimi: I love political theater.

[45:04] Tommy: Thank you, Bertolt Brecht for not telling us.

[45:06] Jimi: It's not I mean, it's political theater and it's not political theatre.

[45:10] Tommy: That's the best part about it.

[45:11] Jimi: Yeah, in terms of the genre, right just of bringing you in and slapping you across the face.

[45:18] Tommy: It's a tiny little story in a big big world.

[45:21] Jimi: I mean, that's even the the brilliant part of the whole production design of the revival is that it starts with the little peephole on the door, and all you see are are the MC's eyes, and like we're we're looking into this tiny little window, and then by the end, the whole wall has fallen down, and we're we're seeing everything.

[45:39] Tommy: Like there's a lot of really intentional metaphorical choices throughout the whole thing.

[45:44] Jimi: You know, if you're into metaphor, it's your dream.

[45:47] Tommy: Oh, it's beautiful.

[45:48] Jimi: There was a cabaret, and there was a master of ceremonies, and there was a city called Berlin in a country called Germany.

[46:02] Tommy: It was the end of the world.

[46:08] Jimi: And I was dancing with Sally Bowles.

[46:11] Tommy: And we were both fast asleep.

[46:19] Jimi: Welcome.

[46:22] Tommy: Framda.

[46:23] Jimi: What is what is crazy is ostensibly the show is about Cliff.

[46:28] Tommy: And we haven't talked about him at all.

[46:31] Jimi: No, we have not.

[46:32] Tommy: Well, that's it.

[46:35] Jimi: It's about Cliff in the sense that Cliff's got the right idea.

[46:38] Tommy: Right.

[46:38] Jimi: But we we are, I mean, Cliff is us. Cliff is the audience member.

[46:42] Tommy: Cliff is the interesting point.

[46:45] Jimi: I think Cliff is what we want to be.

[46:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[46:48] Jimi: But we sometimes necessarily aren't.

[46:51] Tommy: What do you what do you mean?

[46:52] Jimi: So let's let's look at the four characters and what I feel they represent. So we've got Cliff, who is your I hate this. I don't think this is right at all. I'm gonna fight against this. Activist, right?

[47:05] Tommy: Yeah.

[47:06] Jimi: You've got Sally, uh-huh, who is Oh, everything's fabulous here. It's fine. Um, look at this thing. I don't know what word I would apply to this. You're good at this, and you're I want song things, but I don't know. Distractionist, let's go for that.

[47:20] Tommy: Okay, sure.

[47:21] Jimi: Okay, taking pleasure in other things. Um, you've got Furling Schneider, who is very much like, meh.

[47:28] Tommy: Yeah, as old as as old as time.

[47:30] Jimi: So what?

[47:31] Tommy: So what?

[47:31] Jimi: Exactly. And I would call that uh apathy acceptance.

[47:37] Tommy: Um then you've got um Herr Schultz, who is very much like, it's okay, I'm German. It doesn't matter that I'm Jewish, I'm German. They wouldn't dare do something to me.

[47:44] Tommy: Denial.

[47:49] Jimi: Yeah, it's uh it's just children, it's just children.

[47:51] Tommy: Exactly.

[47:52] Jimi: You've got these four types, these architects, which again I think is really kind of shown to you that this is what we mean. Um in the the telecast that you're talking about, the the Domar, because they have their line, the kind of these key lines at the end that they go through.

[48:08] Tommy: In the finale, just children, mischievous children on their way to school.

[48:14] Jimi: You understand?

[48:20] Tommy: I understand.

[48:22] Jimi: One does what one must it'll all work out?

[48:28] Tommy: It's only politics, what has that got to do with us.

[48:35] Jimi: You're kind of sitting there and you're like, Well, which of these four camps do I belong to?

[48:40] Tommy: Now that's it.

[48:40] Jimi: Obviously, we all want to belong to Cliff, and we all want to say, I would totally fight back.

[48:46] Tommy: Yeah.

[48:46] Jimi: But look at what's happening at the moment, okay?

[48:48] Tommy: And look at this podcast's gonna get deep.

[48:51] Jimi: The nonsense that's happening over in the States with Donald Trump, and it's any think of any stance that we have. You do get these people who go out and protest and are these activists.

[49:05] Tommy: But I think a lot of us are like bystanders.

[49:08] Jimi: We're Sally's, or we're we're Schneiders, we're like, ah, I know that's happening, and I I don't agree with it, but what can I do?

[49:16] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:17] Jimi: Or we're oh I know, I know, but look, look at the sale that's on in town. I gotta go to that.

[49:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[49:26] Jimi: That's what it is. And that's what is so shocking at the end, because you're like, ah, that's me.

[49:31] Tommy: Like, that is me.

[49:33] Jimi: I think the rough part is the only even Cliff, like Cliff fails.

[49:38] Tommy: Cliff gets beat up.

[49:41] Jimi: Like, Cliff runs away.

[49:44] Tommy: So I think even classifying him as the, you know, no no one wins.

[49:49] Jimi: No one actually comes out of this on top.

[49:52] Tommy: Everyone sucks.

[49:53] Jimi: And it's World War II. No one wins, of course.

[49:55] Tommy: I don't know.

[49:57] Jimi: Your characterization of Cliff challenges me because I think Cliff is a bit of a coward.

[50:03] Tommy: He I mean he is, but out of the four of them, he's the most active.

[50:07] Jimi: Yeah.

[50:08] Tommy: And he does, he has a fight at the end.

[50:10] Jimi: He does have a I mean he goes.

[50:11] Tommy: But he he starts the whole show having run away from France.

[50:15] Jimi: Like but he's but at the very start of the show as well, though, he is annoyed by what's happening.

[50:21] Tommy: Is that because he's a fighter, or is that because he's an outsider?

[50:25] Jimi: Everyone else has been, you know, we're slowly turning the thumbscrews of this, and like bit by bit, tiny by tiny, and so you don't see those things going on when you're in the middle of it.

[50:36] Tommy: Whereas Cliff arrives via train and he's like, What is this crazy world you have created around here? Didn't can none of you see this?

[50:42] Jimi: Well, I guess he goes through that change because he d I mean I don't think you can deny by the end he's he's trying, he tries.

[50:51] Tommy: He does try.

[50:52] Jimi: He's the only one that tries.

[50:53] Tommy: He is the only one that tries.

[50:55] Jimi: But when you're one out of, you know, and that's the point of the show is that you can't beat the Nazi party in those days because they were everywhere.

[51:03] Tommy: It's interesting though, thinking about kind of the character journeys because Sally doesn't really do anything.

[51:11] Jimi: I wish I wish she had a moment or a bigger moment or a something after cabaret.

[51:18] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[51:19] Jimi: Because I get cabaret, and cabaret is this wonderful where all of the previous Kit Kat Club songs are kind of commentary on the outside world.

[51:30] Tommy: Yeah.

[51:31] Jimi: It's either the MC or Sally or whoever singing this song vaguely related to the outside world.

[51:36] Tommy: In cabaret, we're seeing Sally as herself dealing with the outside world, ostensibly performing an interior Kit Kat Club song.

[51:49] Jimi: Yeah.

[51:49] Tommy: And that's what is beautiful about it.

[51:51] Jimi: But then it's filled with so much metaphor and illusion.

[51:56] Tommy: You know, it would be beautiful to watch her like not be able to finish the song or reach some kind of breaking point there or have some moment afterwards.

[52:08] Jimi: This is where I don't know what I want.

[52:10] Tommy: Because I would say, in terms do you mean like vulnerability?

[52:13] Jimi: I mean some.

[52:14] Tommy: You want to see vulnerability or cabaret is where Sally changes, right?

[52:18] Jimi: Cabaret is where we watch either either depending upon you know directoral choices and actor choices, either right before or during.

[52:27] Tommy: We're either watching the results of the change or watching the like change in Sally happen.

[52:33] Jimi: We don't, you know, life is not a cabaret.

[52:36] Tommy: Life is rough and difficult, and I'm singing this song about how life is a cabaret.

[52:43] Jimi: And like that, we watch her interior struggle.

[52:46] Tommy: Like life, you know.

[52:47] Jimi: Elsie, while she wanted to live this opulent life, did die.

[52:52] Tommy: She's dead.

[52:53] Jimi: There is this, um, the because we've admitted to bootlegs.

[52:58] Tommy: I watched Emma Stone do Cabaret.

[53:02] Jimi: I have not seen it.

[53:03] Tommy: I've seen it.

[53:04] Jimi: If you can bring yourself to look at the bootleg, the when she sings that line, uh, the day she died, the neighbors came to Snicker.

[53:12] Tommy: She takes a wonderful beat there that I've never heard any other performer take.

[53:31] Jimi: With my shadow soldier.

[53:36] Tommy: She wasn't what she's called.

[53:40] Jimi: As a matter of fact, she read I the Alma.

[53:45] Tommy: The day she died.

[53:49] Jimi: The neighbors came.

[53:52] Tommy: To stay up.

[53:54] Jimi: Well, that's what comes up too much, fill the nickel.

[54:00] Tommy: But it's so much more beautiful.

[54:04] Jimi: In all other performances, Sally kind of brushes off like the the remembered death of her friend is like, but she wanted to live, and so it's beautiful.

[54:15] Tommy: But to watch Sally contemplate this concept of death, this contemplate that this wonderful world we live in comes to an end.

[54:26] Jimi: It's it was very moving.

[54:28] Tommy: It was surprisingly moving based upon what I had thought Emma Stone was gonna bring to this.

[54:33] Tommy: I love her. I did not think she was going to do it very well, but it's a very good performance.

[54:37] Jimi: Okay, I'll check it out. I will check it out. But so I think like that's the rub with me is that song, "Cabaret." How much do you think she changes though? Do you right? So after "Cabaret" happens, Cliff's gone.

[54:46] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[54:48] Jimi: What's she gonna do? Right. She's not gonna become a revolutionary, an activist. I mean, she's gonna do what she does. She's gonna keep going.

[54:56] Tommy: Well, but you can't. World War II happens. Does she run away? Like, you know, what happens? World War II happens, but what happened to the— I mean, World War II is happening at that point.

[55:09] Tommy: Right.

[56:15] Jimi: Do you know what I mean? Because she's not— I mean, she's not Jewish. I don't know what happened to British people in Germany.

[56:30] Tommy: That's the question. What happens to Sally? Sally's kind of the only one we don't have a lot of idea on where she ends up. You know, we can assume Herr Schultz ends up in a camp. We can probably assume Fraulein Schneider continues her complacency in this all and tries to get by. We know Cliff runs away. We know the MC ends up in the camp. What happens to Sally? She's still singing in this Kit Kat Club in the movie at least, and they're different stories, but we see that like the club continues even into Nazi Germany. We're seeing, you know, all the armbands through the mirror and the glass. Like that contemplating what happens to— like I because I don't have a clear picture in my mind and the ambiguity is not exciting. Sometimes it's fun to not know. Sometimes it's—that's the point is like what happened to her. But I don't find that fun either, which smells slightly of poor ambiguous choices.

[57:10] Jimi: You know what I mean?

[57:10] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[57:10] Jimi: Like, I want something more there. Whether it's more intentional ambiguity, like very clearly we don't know what happens to Sally, or like it's two different choices, and like, you know, we cut to she runs to the train station, and Cliff is like, come with me, and then the lights go out, and we don't know whether she went with Cliff or not, but there's that option. Some sort of paring down of those choices, I think helps improve the ending more. This is my problem with Sally, I think.

[57:10] Tommy: It's literally— the reason I don't think it's a problem for me is that I haven't thought about it until this very moment.

[57:10] Jimi: Yeah.

[57:15] Tommy: Do you know what I mean? Like what happens to Sally? I kind of just— you're like, well, she's effed. Do you know what I mean? She's—but we spend so much time with her. We spend so much time with everyone there, and we see everyone else fail or run or cower, but we don't drive that through with Sally.

[57:28] Jimi: We don't though, because you— everyone ends at the same point as Sally does. Cliff might get off the train and run back. You know, I mean, you don't— you see him at the train station, you never see him get on the train. So we don't necessarily see what happens to everyone.

[57:44] Tommy: So I guess they all kind of end at this coda where it's like World War II happens. Like you say, World War II happens, and who knows? And it's almost like it doesn't matter because it's happening to everyone.

[57:56] Jimi: I guess that's true. I wish— I guess I wish the "it doesn't matter" was more poignant.

[58:03] Tommy: Maybe.

[58:04] Jimi: Like that's where like I'm wanting the intentional ambiguity. It's really interesting our different takes on it because I don't empathize with them as characters. I'm not like— I don't— I'm not like, "Ah, your journey." I'm just like, "Ah, you're archetype." Do you know what I mean? So for me, I'm more interested in, well, what does your message mean in the grand scheme of things? I guess that's— it's two different opinions of seeing the show, isn't it?

[58:33] Tommy: I love also— I love that I call it "cabaret" and you call it "cabaret."

[58:36] Jimi: Cabaret.

[58:36] Tommy: I think I wonder if there's a note regional or if that's just us.

[58:41] Jimi: Very good point, actually.

[58:43] Tommy: World.

[58:44] Jimi: World.

[58:45] Tommy: How do you say cabaret?

[58:47] Jimi: Cabaret.

[58:48] Tommy: Cabaret? Or cabaret?

[58:50] Jimi: Where's your cabaret?

[58:53] Tommy: Probably that. That's probably— we're both saying it wrong in the accents of the cabinet, I guess. I wonder what that's what they say in the show.

[58:59] Jimi: Cabaret to cabaret to cabaret.

[59:02] Tommy: Uh, but that's not— but when, um, when she sings, "Life, life is a cabaret, old chum."

[59:11] Jimi: There you go, that's true. And that's accents, you know, that's Germany in London. Who knows?

[59:17] Tommy: Two ladies, two ladies, and I'm the only man.

[59:28] Jimi: I like it.

[59:31] Tommy: Like it says two ball fun. Whatever that like unattainable feeling that that theatre can create, "Cabaret" does it in a wonderful way. And that's the thing, because like if you really look at the production design of the Donmar production, so many little um Weimar Germany, just in a lot of it to do with Alan Cumming.

[59:57] Jimi: Yeah.

[59:57] Tommy: But it's his makeup and hair is done a lot of like just a lot of um Otto Dix's paintings and stuff. Yeah. I'll— I'll probably put one in the show notes for sure to show what I mean because there's those one that's like you could put them side by side and be like, "Ah, that's cool." I love when productions end up like that.

[1:00:13] Jimi: Yeah. Well, they did that in the movie. There were so many— I think that's again, it's the movie being the turning point for the show. Because there's a scene in the movie that is literally an Otto Dix painting, and they've just— and they've just made it.

[1:00:27] Tommy: Yeah, they've just copied it, and it's great. I love it because it's just— it's that— that's the aesthetic of the time.

[1:00:34] Jimi: Oh, it's so good, the movie, isn't it?

[1:00:36] Tommy: It's a great— it's a moving movie. Is it your favorite movie adaptation?

[1:00:42] Jimi: Absolutely not.

[1:00:44] Tommy: Oh, sorry, yeah, yours is— yours is "Rent," isn't it?

[1:00:47] Jimi: No, God. It's not my favorite because it's different. And this is just a sticking point with me, but it is different too much. When you move something to a movie, I understand subtle changes because you're in a different medium. "Cabaret" is rewritten to be a Liza Minnelli film, and it's a different story under the same name, which rubs me the wrong way for no good reason.

[1:01:10] Tommy: I don't— I've— I don't think I've talked about this much in the podcast about how obsessed I am with Bob Fosse.

[1:01:14] Jimi: Choreography is beautiful, yeah.

[1:01:16] Tommy: Yeah, well, the direction's beautiful. Bobby's my guy, that man. I am obsessed and study him and his work because I need to work out the magic because there is a magic about it. It's completely indisputable. He, you know, how you can create a form of dance in this day and age that hasn't been done. It's amazing. And then in its simplicity and subtlety, like I think Kander and Ebb said the first thing they ever wrote of the show is still in it. It's that vamp that bump bump bump bump bump bump bump. And you just picture the Fosse choreography with it. Like the little— like it's hip thing— it's just a part of it, but it's not, but it is. And obviously, you know, it's not choreographed in any recent productions. I think he's camping somewhere at the moment. He's on holidays, to him at least.

[1:02:11] Jimi: Um, yeah, he's— the Simpsons did this episode where it kind of forced— he's out with Rickman and Bowie. They're having a grand old—

[1:02:17] Tommy: Yeah, they're chilling.

[1:02:19] Jimi: Some people have two people. Bob Fosse has Alan Rickman, and what a wonderful trio.

[1:02:26] Tommy: Oh my God. I'm just now imagining Alan Rickman doing tiny little wrist twirls.

[1:02:32] Jimi: He would do it. I mean, you know, you know Dave Bowie’s got it, but he would— Alan Rickman, yeah.

[1:02:38] Tommy: Um, yeah, so you were saying like you see it, you know what I mean? And that's it, is any choreography you see of any of the recent revivals, yeah, it's just completely influenced by— both saying you can't take it away, and you can't take it away. Because if you do, it's crap.

[1:02:53] Jimi: Yeah, it just doesn't work. He found— it's not very often, I think, in musical theatre, especially with something as ambiguous as "Cabaret," where someone finds the way to do the thing. Like, I think in "Les Mis," jumping off the bridge and having it fly up in the air, that's the way to do the thing. Maybe. In "Sweeney Todd," or maybe in "Sweeney Todd," like having the chair go in this particular way and having them go through the trapdoor in the floor. Maybe.

[1:03:27] Tommy: Well, not explicitly is the way to do the thing. And like, yes, we should have after set, but like you gotta have a damn good better way to do it if you're gonna replace it.

[1:03:38] Jimi: Yeah. I just think it's the same with anything Fosse does. He does not wrong in my opinion. Everything he's done.

[1:03:44] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[1:03:45] Jimi: And it's not like he's got a shtick.

[1:03:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:03:47] Jimi: Everything he's done is identifiable to the thing that it is.

[1:03:51] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:03:52] Jimi: Whether that is the kind of quirky, weird stuff that goes on in "How to Succeed," or whether it's the completely different quirky and weird stuff that goes on in "Cabaret," which is very typical to a lot of kind of 1930s, you know, jazz era.

[1:04:09] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:04:09] Jimi: Um, or whether it's the just kind of out and out what on earth is going on nonsense in "Sweet Charity." And is so still identifiable as his style. Like I can't think of an artist that does both so well.

[1:04:24] Tommy: That's it, they don't. They don't because it's— it's— it's— it's Fosse. It's not, you know, it's like— to me, and I know it's not true, but to me, saying Fosse is like saying jazz or saying ballet.

[1:04:38] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:04:38] Tommy: It's a form. It's something that's— obviously it's a form of jazz. I'm not, you know, I'm not stupid, right? But it's so particular and so disciplined. Do you know why Fosse looks the way Fosse— if I say Fosse?

[1:04:51] Jimi: Why?

[1:04:54] Tommy: Um, because that is the way that Fosse was built. So Fosse was pigeon-toed.

[1:04:58] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[1:04:59] Tommy: Um, and he had a little bit of a hunch. So when he danced, that's just how he was. That's what it looked like. And he choreographed these shows in his body.

[1:05:09] Jimi: So thank God.

[1:05:11] Tommy: Yeah, thank God for Bobby's. He was like that because it's amazing.

[1:05:15] Jimi: Yeah. And is that— and I always wonder this. I'm like, is that— is it because it's so human? Is it because you're not— he's not trying to be something else? He's just a guy doing this stuff and working it out. Is that what makes it so— it's whatever it is? Is that the joie de vivre of Fosse?

[1:05:32] Tommy: Bye.

[1:05:43] Jimi: The hair. It was a fine up there, but now it's over. And though I used to care, I need the open air. You're better off without me, my hair. Don't dab your eye on my hair, or wonder why mine hair. I've always said that I was a rover. You mustn't niche your brow. You should have known mine now. You'd every cause to doubt me, my hair. Bye-bye, my neighbor hair. I'll be done in my hair.

[1:06:18] Tommy: I have unrelated to this. A bunch of people sent us double song musicals that we should do. So last time I had a very half-assed quiz about song titles that are in two musicals. Um, I don't even remember the ones I said.

[1:06:33] Jimi: You said "Supper Time."

[1:06:36] Tommy: "Supper Time," which is in both "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and "Little Shop of Horrors."

[1:06:42] Jimi: And "Right Hand Man."

[1:06:43] Tommy: Yes. From "Thompson" and of course "Something's Rotten." Jimmy's favorite musical.

[1:06:48] Jimi: "Something Rotten."

[1:06:50] Tommy: And all of you wonderful internet people sent us a bunch of other song titles that are in musicals. And so we have to thank you for doing that. Thank you so much. These are a lot of fun. There are more than I thought there were. Yeah, we've created a parlor game. Let's make an app. This will be good. Next time, next time you're out with a bunch of musical theatre friends, stump your friends with these songs.

[1:07:13] Jimi: Exactly.

[1:07:14] Tommy: So, Jimmy, the first double song on my list. Okay, crap, and this one's kind of a stretch, I think, but I think you'll like it. Is "Telephone Song."

[1:07:25] Jimi: Okay.

[1:07:26] Tommy: Well, "Cabaret."

[1:07:28] Jimi: Right.

[1:07:29] Tommy: And this is why I think it's a stretch.

[1:07:31] Jimi: No, "Miss Saigon."

[1:07:33] Tommy: "Miss Saigon," I was thinking.

[1:07:35] Jimi: Is that not your answer?

[1:07:36] Tommy: No, my answer was "Bye Bye Birdie" with "Telephone Hour." Have you heard of sometimes billed as the "Telephone Song"?

[1:07:45] Jimi: Is there a "Telephone Song" in "Miss Saigon"?

[1:07:47] Tommy: I'm just gonna confirm it. Just gonna speak to my people and confirm that one.

[1:07:51] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:07:52] Tommy: "Miss Saigon," the "Telephone."

[1:07:53] Jimi: Good for you. I'm proud of you of me.

[1:07:56] Tommy: You might have— you might have got that, and I was wrong. That's probably what they intended.

[1:08:00] Jimi: Oh, I feel so— can we just stop the game now? Because I'm already just wrong on the screen. Give me one time zero.

[1:08:07] Jimi: Before descending into Waffle Bears, which is where we're headed.

[1:08:12] Tommy: Okay.

[1:08:12] Jimi: You ready?

[1:08:13] Tommy: You ready for the second one?

[1:08:14] Jimi: Yeah, I'm ready.

[1:08:15] Tommy: This one, this one stumped me, actually, so far.

[1:08:19] Jimi: I'm alive.

[1:08:21] Tommy: Okay, next to normal.

[1:08:22] Jimi: Next to normal.

[1:08:24] Tommy: And then are the meaning Jekyll and Hyde and they're getting that wrong.

[1:08:27] Jimi: Oh, maybe.

[1:08:28] Tommy: What's the name of the actual song in Jekyll and Hyde?

[1:08:31] Jimi: Alive.

[1:08:32] Tommy: Alive.

[1:08:33] Jimi: Maybe they're meaning that.

[1:08:35] Tommy: I'm just like, and there's no other one. Sorry.

[1:08:37] Jimi: Yeah, I mean, that's the only thing I can think of.

[1:08:41] Tommy: And we did offer like room for forest.

[1:08:44] Jimi: Yeah, exactly.

[1:08:45] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:08:46] Jimi: That could be.

[1:08:46] Tommy: That could be.

[1:08:47] Jimi: But I would have liked the IM to have been in brackets if that was the intention.

[1:08:51] Tommy: Are you Googling?

[1:08:52] Jimi: Are you good?

[1:08:53] Tommy: I'm not Googling. I'm just taking down our guesses for these.

[1:08:56] Jimi: Oh, okay.

[1:08:58] Tommy: Oh yeah. Let's not find. What can they tell us yet? Can we just Google?

[1:09:01] Jimi: I want to know now. If we're wrong, you gotta let us know, listeners. Or if you have a better option, you just you gotta. You're our only hope.

[1:09:09] Tommy: Uh the next one is the abduction.

[1:09:13] Jimi: Oh Christ. I know one of them.

[1:09:14] Tommy: Abduction.

[1:09:16] Jimi: Isn't The Fantastics?

[1:09:19] Tommy: There's a song called The Abduction and The Fantastics.

[1:09:22] Jimi: I believe it's the subtitle because its proper title is The Rape Ballet.

[1:09:26] Tommy: I've choreographed The Fantastics. I don't know what this is. Why haven't I choreographed this song?

[1:09:31] Jimi: Uh, because it's cut a lot, because it's about rape.

[1:09:34] Tommy: Oh, maybe it's cut.

[1:09:36] Jimi: Yeah. But I don't know the other one.

[1:09:38] Tommy: I haven't The Abduction.

[1:09:40] Jimi: The Abduction.

[1:09:40] Tommy: Is there any like alien? That one has stumped me.

[1:09:42] Jimi: Look our Wiley listeners. Next on the list, All This Time.

[1:09:48] Tommy: I feel like that's one I should know.

[1:09:50] Jimi: I got nothing.

[1:09:51] Tommy: It totally feels like a song that could be in any show.

[1:09:55] Jimi: I know.

[1:09:57] Tommy: One of our old X Factor winners before you guys had X Factor, um, called Michelle McManus. She's Scottish. Had a song called All This Time. That's probably and that's all I've got going through my head.

[1:10:07] Jimi: And I can't. It's so bad that I can't think of anything else.

[1:10:11] Tommy: Do you think people tweeted at us names of songs that aren't actually in musicals? Like they're just trying to mess with us.

[1:10:16] Jimi: Yeah, they're just songs.

[1:10:21] Tommy: I know. That would be fun. Because again, that'd be the only reason we wouldn't know because we know everything.

[1:10:26] Jimi: Absolutely.

[1:10:27] Tommy: We are the experts.

[1:10:29] Jimi: We wrote everything.

[1:10:31] Tommy: I got nothing on all this time. If you know of two musicals with a song named All This Time in it, you should tweet at us at Jim and Tomek on Twitter.

[1:10:38] Jimi: Here, you want a lowball? I'll give you a lowball.

[1:10:39] Tommy: You're gonna give me Santa Fe.

[1:10:42] Jimi: I am gonna give you Santa Fe.

[1:10:44] Tommy: Everyone tweeted this one at us. I think it's wonderful.

[1:10:46] Jimi: Which is like it's a good one.

[1:10:47] Tommy: It is a really good one.

[1:10:48] Jimi: That's exactly what we want. Santa Fe is in Rent.

[1:10:54] Tommy: And Newsies.

[1:10:55] Jimi: Both surprisingly, songs about leaving New York to go to Santa Fe.

[1:10:55] Tommy: Go to Santa Fe.

[1:11:01] Jimi: It's a really funny.

[1:11:02] Tommy: Yeah, isn't that weird?

[1:11:03] Jimi: Jonathan Larson.

[1:11:04] Tommy: It's not, it's not the musicals have nothing else in common.

[1:11:09] Jimi: They're both set in New York, Tommy.

[1:11:11] Tommy: Yeah, well, it's all embodied in that song, Santa Fe.

[1:11:14] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:11:15] Tommy: Um, next on the list, I only have one half.

[1:11:17] Jimi: Brand new day.

[1:11:19] Tommy: Brand new day.

[1:11:20] Jimi: One of them you must know.

[1:11:22] Tommy: One of them is The Wiz?

[1:11:24] Jimi: Yeah, the Whiz.

[1:11:25] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:11:25] Jimi: Recently telecast. I was really right. I was gonna get that.

[1:11:28] Tommy: Um I couldn't remember if that's what it was called. Maybe it's in hair.

[1:11:31] Jimi: Hero's got like 90 songs in the feel that they might sing about a brand new day.

[1:11:35] Tommy: Brand new day, hair.

[1:11:38] Jimi: Mm-mm.

[1:11:39] Tommy: Mm-mm. No.

[1:11:40] Jimi: No.

[1:11:41] Tommy: Oh, you know what? It's gonna be something stupid.

[1:11:44] Jimi: Would I have heard the song?

[1:11:47] Tommy: Uh what do you mean something stupid? Is it something obvious?

[1:11:50] Jimi: No, it's like it's something that's not a stage musical.

[1:11:54] Tommy: Well, then I don't want to hear it.

[1:11:57] Jimi: That is not what we asked.

[1:11:58] Tommy: No, but it is a musical. It's just not a stage musical.

[1:12:02] Jimi: Um is it from uh Doctor Horrible?

[1:12:07] Tommy: I have only that ones years ago, so I don't know.

[1:12:10] Jimi: Me too. That's why I'm like, I don't know. Give it a Google.

[1:12:13] Tommy: Go for that.

[1:12:14] Jimi: Take that.

[1:12:15] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:12:15] Jimi: Dr. Horrible Sing Along with Blood. Brand new day. Pull that out. Is there a song called The Abduction in that as well?

[1:12:24] Tommy: That's a great one. That was a good one.

[1:12:26] Jimi: Um next on the list is No More.

[1:12:30] Tommy: Okay.

[1:12:31] Jimi: No More Into the Woods.

[1:12:33] Tommy: Into the Woods.

[1:12:35] Jimi: No More. Do you know this one?

[1:12:37] Tommy: No, I only know Into the Woods.

[1:12:39] Jimi: Maybe it's like no, comma, more.

[1:12:41] Tommy: No. More.

[1:12:44] Jimi: That's another point.

[1:12:46] Tommy: Uh isn't there a song? Oh, I can hear it in my head. It's like sleep no more.

[1:12:54] Jimi: The fire stuff. It's it's like um uh uh oh that no, that's Fear No More from the Frogs.

[1:13:06] Tommy: That's what that is. Is it called No More?

[1:13:09] Jimi: No, you wouldn't have two songs called No More, you would never do that.

[1:13:11] Tommy: It's called Fear No More.

[1:13:13] Jimi: Yeah, he'd never do that. Unless that's what people mean, but it'd be it'd be You've been in the rules a little too much, if that's what you meant.

[1:13:21] Tommy: I just thought I had it there, and then I was just singing a different part of No More.

[1:13:28] Jimi: It's like it's like, yeah, no more. That's da-da-da-da-da. And then I thought, nah no. I was like, what one's that?

[1:13:34] Tommy: Well, it's the same song. Same song.

[1:13:35] Jimi: Um yeah, I don't know.

[1:13:38] Tommy: Yeah, don't know either. This is bad, isn't it?

[1:13:40] Jimi: I know. This is Google it's a good one. It proved to be a really a really uh successful stumping quiz.

[1:13:46] Tommy: Um the rest of these get a little easier. Um although this next one, I don't know.

[1:13:49] Jimi: Without you?

[1:13:50] Tommy: Without you, rent.

[1:13:51] Jimi: Rent and oh no.

[1:13:55] Tommy: Oh, Google spoiled it for me.

[1:13:58] Jimi: Oh, what did it do?

[1:13:59] Tommy: It told me what it is.

[1:14:00] Jimi: It will tend to do that.

[1:14:01] Tommy: Yeah. Wait, what is it then?

[1:14:02] Jimi: Oh, is it um My Free Lady?

[1:14:05] Tommy: My Fair Lady, without you.

[1:14:06] Jimi: Yeah, that's fine. I do I all call it my fair lady.

[1:14:11] Tommy: Yeah, that is a good one. I don't know my fair lady very well. I got four more.

[1:14:14] Jimi: You and I.

[1:14:16] Tommy: Okay.

[1:14:16] Jimi: Lady Gaga.

[1:14:18] Tommy: Right.

[1:14:18] Jimi: That's what I was thinking.

[1:14:19] Tommy: Will young.

[1:14:20] Jimi: Right. Like, is this what they mean? Lady Gaga?

[1:14:24] Tommy: I mean, I'm sure they don't. I can't think of any musical.

[1:14:26] Jimi: This is so bad.

[1:14:27] Tommy: Have you got one?

[1:14:28] Jimi: No. This is gonna showcase all these musicals we don't know.

[1:14:32] Tommy: I know this is great though. Uh I'll put in the show notes, or we'll put um the list of the ones we didn't get. And so you can go through, dear listener, and see if you you have stumped Jimmy and Tommy.

[1:14:44] Jimi: And we'll trust that you didn't Google them.

[1:14:48] Tommy: Yes. We're putting our faith in you.

[1:14:50] Jimi: The next one is easier.

[1:14:53] Tommy: Tomorrow.

[1:14:54] Jimi: Okay.

[1:14:55] Tommy: Annie and Bugs and Alone.

[1:14:58] Jimi: Is there a tomorrow and Bugsy Malone?

[1:15:00] Tommy: Tomorrow, tomorrow.

[1:15:02] Jimi: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:15:04] Tommy: Is that called tomorrow? Is that called Tomorrow?

[1:15:05] Jimi: Never comes.

[1:15:08] Tommy: There's a question.

[1:15:10] Jimi: Um I think it's called Tomorrow, actually.

[1:15:12] Tommy: I bet you're right.

[1:15:13] Jimi: It is just called tomorrow.

[1:15:14] Tommy: You're right. Bugsy Malone.

[1:15:16] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:15:16] Tommy: There you go. I love that song.

[1:15:18] Jimi: Next on the list is I believe.

[1:15:18] Tommy: I believe.

[1:15:22] Jimi: Uh-huh.

[1:15:24] Tommy: And is there an I believe in Shrek?

[1:15:28] Jimi: No, you're thinking of you're thinking of I'm a Believer.

[1:15:28] Tommy: I'm a Believer.

[1:15:33] Jimi: Which is a different song.

[1:15:37] Tommy: Okay.

[1:15:38] Jimi: I believe.

[1:15:39] Tommy: I believe the children know the future.

[1:15:42] Jimi: Oh no, I know what it is. Titular love.

[1:15:45] Tommy: We've done it.

[1:15:46] Jimi: I believe, I believe, I believe.

[1:15:50] Tommy: Oh, I believe.

[1:15:52] Jimi: Okay, okay.

[1:15:53] Tommy: No.

[1:15:54] Jimi: We have to edit that.

[1:15:55] Tommy: No, that we can. We gotta leave it in, because it's so funny.

[1:15:58] Jimi: Isn't that just called Isn't that just called Believe?

[1:16:00] Tommy: Oh, yes. Just believe.

[1:16:02] Jimi: Oh, you know, easy, easy.

[1:16:04] Tommy: That's from Spring Awakening.

[1:16:05] Jimi: Oh, clearly. Obviously.

[1:16:08] Tommy: Did you not hear me say that? I said it like last week.

[1:16:12] Jimi: Oh, that's fantastic. I believe from Book of Mormon and Spring Awakening.

[1:16:17] Tommy: It's tough because there's such all these are such different songs that end up with the same title that it's hard to keep track of them.

[1:16:26] Jimi: The last one, which is beautiful, which we talked about post-podcast was uh Maria.

[1:16:32] Tommy: Oh yeah. Do you remember this one?

[1:16:35] Jimi: Well, obviously, no West Story, but I can't remember what the other one was, I um It was because it wasn't Same of Music.

[1:16:43] Tommy: It was Sound of Music.

[1:16:44] Jimi: Oh, it was sign of music.

[1:16:45] Tommy: Yeah, isn't that song called Maria?

[1:16:47] Jimi: Is it? Is it not called How Do You Solve a Problem?

[1:16:49] Tommy: Maybe it's is it how'd you solve a problem like in brackets, Maria?

[1:16:51] Jimi: It's just called Maria.

[1:16:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:16:53] Jimi: It is how do you solve a problem like Maria, but the song is just called Maria.

[1:16:57] Tommy: Oh.

[1:16:57] Jimi: From West Side Story.

[1:16:59] Tommy: And Sound of Amelia.

[1:17:03] Jimi: Isn't that funny?

[1:17:04] Tommy: Oh man. I'm so annoyed about Spring Awakening. It's so hard when you're put on the spot.

[1:17:08] Jimi: So so far in the ones. People can't argue that we don't we don't know Spring Awakening.

[1:17:13] Tommy: We talked we did a whole podcast about it.

[1:17:14] Jimi: We did do a whole podcast about it. And we did I did I did remember it. It took a couple seconds.

[1:17:20] Tommy: That's true. Um so the ones that'll end up in the show notes that are stumping us are the abduction.

[1:17:21] Jimi: The abduction.

[1:17:28] Tommy: All this time.

[1:17:30] Jimi: Can I Google them now that we've finished the segment?

[1:17:32] Tommy: We once after after we're done with this show, Jimmy and I will Google them so that if you're right listeners, we can let you know if you're the ones also so we can sleep.

[1:17:42] Jimi: And also sleep.

[1:17:44] Tommy: So the abduction, all this time, no more, yeah and you and I.

[1:17:52] Jimi: These are the four we're not sure about.

[1:17:55] Tommy: And put in if we've got one. So like for no more, we know one of them is into the woods.

[1:17:57] Jimi: We know one of them is into the woods for the abduction. We're pretty sure it's the Fantastics.

[1:18:04] Tommy: Um for all this time, and you and I, we're stoked.

[1:18:07] Jimi: Michelle McManus, the X Factor Hits.

[1:18:10] Tommy: Yep, that's it. That's probably that's absolutely it.

[1:18:13] Jimi: The great musical hit X.

[1:18:15] Tommy: Isn't there an X Factor the musical though?

[1:18:17] Jimi: Uh it's called I Can't Sing. It's not called X Factor Musical.

[1:18:20] Tommy: But does it have the song U and I in it?

[1:18:22] Jimi: It does not.

[1:18:23] Tommy: Okay, well.

[1:18:24] Jimi: Yeah, we will never ever talk about I Can't Sing on this podcast.

[1:18:27] Tommy: Otherwise, I will leave the podcast.

[1:18:29] Jimi: But Jimmy, we just did.

[1:18:31] Tommy: Yeah, but I mean we'll never discuss it.

[1:18:33] Jimi: Everyone, Jimmy left.

[1:18:34] Tommy: Jimmy's not here anymore. He walked away from the microphone.

[1:18:38] Jimi: Is it someone new?

[1:18:40] Tommy: Hello, I'm Jimmy's brother.

[1:18:42] Jimi: Jimmy 2.0.

[1:19:11] Tommy: Well that was that was fun.

[1:19:13] Jimi: That was good.

[1:19:14] Tommy: That was good.

[1:19:15] Jimi: We got political.

[1:19:16] Tommy: I'm sweating a little bit.

[1:19:18] Jimi: Political sweat.

[1:19:19] Tommy: Uh so next next week, Jimmy. We're both we're both taking our medicine and we're gonna talk about nine, the musical.

[1:19:26] Jimi: I know.

[1:19:27] Tommy: Yeah, I know. I haven't watched the movie yet. You've told me it's gonna be awful.

[1:19:31] Jimi: I know. What would be funny if you loved it and you're like, what are you talking about?

[1:19:37] Tommy: This day I life is the best thing I've ever seen.

[1:19:39] Jimi: Either way, that's probably how I'm gonna start the podcast next week, just to just to throw you off.

[1:19:43] Tommy: Um is interesting. It's I I don't like it, but there's so much I love about it.

[1:19:50] Jimi: Yeah.

[1:19:50] Tommy: Okay, and that that weird, ambiguous nonsense thought is what I'm gonna leave with. I'm I'm interested to see that. We're also we'll maybe we'll touch on some other Kander and Eb mishmashy facts for Kander and Eb Month.

[1:20:02] Jimi: I hope we do.

[1:20:03] Tommy: Exactly. Cause it is it's Kander and M month. We can't just talk about the best and the worst.

[1:20:07] Jimi: Absolutely.

[1:20:07] Tommy: We gotta talk about everything in between. The jam in between.

[1:20:11] Jimi: Um have you got a quiz question for this?

[1:20:13] Tommy: I do have a quiz question to leave our listeners with. If you know the answer to this quiz question, tweet us. Twitter.com slash Jim and Tomic. Um you can find it all over the place. Uh, we talked a lot about Jimmy Liza Minelli on this podcast.

[1:20:26] Jimi: Yes, we did.

[1:20:27] Tommy: This question is about Liza Minnelli.

[1:20:30] Jimi: With a Z.

[1:20:31] Tommy: With a Z. Not with an S.

[1:20:34] Jimi: This series of popular children's books is rumored to be based upon Liza Minelli's childhood.

[1:20:41] Tommy: This series of popular children's books is rumored to be based upon Liza Minnelli's childhood. What are they called?

[1:20:46] Jimi: What could it be?

[1:20:49] Tommy: What could it be? If you know the answer, tweet us. Let us know.

[1:20:52] Jimi: Let us know.

[1:20:54] Tommy: That was a good one.

[1:20:55] Jimi: It's good to be back, T.

[1:20:57] Tommy: Woo!

[1:20:57] Jimi: Happy New Year!

[1:20:58] Tommy: Happy cabaret!

[1:20:59] Jimi: Happy New Year. Happy cabaret.

[1:21:02] Tommy: Uh good.

[1:21:06] Jimi: Okay.

[1:21:07] Tommy: Right. Have a good one.

[1:21:08] Jimi: That'll be good.

[1:21:22] Tommy: Have you ever seen um Liza Minelli lamp?

[1:21:27] Jimi: Somebody better turn off this lamp.

[1:21:29] Tommy: Almost have a dude somewhere.

[1:21:34] Jimi: Liza, honey, we gotta we gotta make it to the show. Remember this?