This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jimmy: Do you remember that? EA Sports. It's in the game. Oh, it used to be challenge everything.

[0:10] Tommy: No, that no, it didn't used to be.

[0:12] Jimmy: Oh, is it now Challenge Everything?

[0:14] Tommy: Yeah, it used to be EA Sports. It's in the game.

[0:17] Jimmy: Thank God, uh, movie studios don't, you know, like MGM Lion, like but then they're messing out on iconic things like Sega.

[0:30] Tommy: That's true, that's true. Classics.

[0:32] Jimmy: Which I think the Sega voice took up like an eighth of that cartridge or something. Like that was a huge memory drain.

[0:38] Tommy: Absolutely, especially in the Sonic one where Sonic would have little animation bit during it as well. They wanted a lot for that.

[0:46] Jimmy: We're trying so hard to make a video game podcast on our musical theater podcasts. We manifest a lot of things, but this has yet to be manifested.

[0:55] Tommy: If you work for Polygon, you know our number. Somebody get us another drink!

[1:01] Jimmy: Welcome to Jim and Tomic's musical theatre happy hour. I'm Jimmy.

[1:09] Tommy: And I'm Tommy. And this is the only musical theater podcast with Salty Bourbon and Athol Marmum.

[1:20] Jimmy: That peaked.

[1:21] Tommy: Sorry. We have not peaked. Here, we take apart your favorite shows. Should I be doing this in the voice as well? Model them together with a shot of buffoonery and pour you a refreshing glass of musical theater conversation.

[1:35] Jimmy: Delicious. Tommy, what are you drinking today?

[1:40] Tommy: Uh, it's a vintage whatever the year of that champagne was. Uh huh. And it'd be a shame for it to go to waste, but it might have lost its bubbles.

[1:53] Jimmy: Those are they talk about champagne twice, and those are the things I remember. Right here, but I'll tell you why in the form of a quiz question.

[2:02] Tommy: I think you absolutely should.

[2:04] Jimmy: It was a complete accident that this musical and film with the exact same name and premise premiered the same year. What show, Jimmy?

[2:14] Tommy: Titanic.

[2:17] Jimmy: In every age, mankind attempts to fabricate great works at once magnificent and impossible on desert sands from mountains of stone, a pyramid.

[2:31] Tommy: From flying buttresses alone, a wall of light, a chapel ceiling screaming one man's ecstasy, one man's ecstasy.

[3:07] Jimmy: A giant pyramid.

[3:09] Tommy: No, not a pyramid. Our task was to dream upon and then create a city.

[3:35] Jimmy: What if it was Titanic the musical, but sung by Muppet Chickens? Coming soon to a cinema, yeah.

[3:42] Tommy: I don't know, like I love the Muppet Chickens.

[3:46] Jimmy: They're great. Why haven't the Muppets done Titanic?

[3:51] Tommy: I mean, I think there's many answers to that question.

[3:58] Jimmy: Uh yeah. I thought they've ever done like a parody of it on the Muppet Show. I'm sure everyone's part of Titanic, right? Everyone's like, you know, you know, paint me like one of your French girls, Carmi.

[4:09] Tommy: That was my Miss Pig.

[4:10] Jimmy: That was the best Miss Piggy I could do in the moment. Paint me like one of your French girls, Kirby.

[4:16] Tommy: Mine's better.

[4:18] Jimmy: Oh, okay. Um, my aspiration in life.

[4:24] Tommy: The rest of the podcast is cancelled. Do more Titanic things in Muppet Voice.

[4:28] Jimmy: Right. My aspiration in life is to do a whole skit between Carebut and Miss Piggy, voiced solely by me. That's my aspiration in life. And then I break into singing uh Lovelay Does Here in their voices.

[4:46] Tommy: From from Muppets Treasure Island.

[4:48] Jimmy: Yes, I am well aware. Phew. Oh my god, we can do that on the show. Anyway.

[4:55] Tommy: Titanic the Musical, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, book by Peter Stone, and premiered April 23rd, 1997, and played for three two years, night until 1999.

[5:05] Jimmy: Yes, and shockingly enough, it's based on the sailing and sinking of the Titanic. Spoiler alert. The boat is gonna sink.

[5:14] Tommy: Yes. Um, it had a very successful US tour, um, uh very successful UK tour just the other year, um that I saw. Hooray.

[5:23] Jimmy: Um, and it was nominated and won uh five Tony awards, including the coveted best musical.

[5:31] Tommy: Yes. Um also on best score book scenic design orchestrations for Mr. Jonathan Tunick again. I'm just thinking about this now, but are there I would love to see a list of musicals that have only won production Tonys.

[5:43] Jimmy: Um, that's an interesting category.

[5:47] Tommy: Um, I'm unsurprised that this musical has fallen into that category. Not that the actors are bad, but it's just that kind of show.

[5:55] Jimmy: Uh yeah, definitely. That's you're yeah, you're not we'll get into it.

[6:00] Tommy: Yeah. Um okay, I mean, what is the story of the Titanic?

[6:04] Jimmy: Right, well, the boat sinks. Um Right. But like if you so if you have an experience so per our quiz question, this musical came out the same year as the James Cameron film entirely by accident. Um but if you've seen the James Cameron film, aside from the kind of Jack and Rose plot which was invented for the film, it it tracks it mu it it it tallies a lot of the same points, don't you think?

[6:29] Tommy: Well, I mean, yeah, 'cause it's one of the most documented things that's ever been in existence. Um is the sailing and sinking of the Titanic. Um and this focuses on uh a multitude of passengers rather than the film, which I would say focuses primarily just on these two fictional ones.

[6:51] Jimmy: Um the musical is more focused on people based on people who are real.

[6:56] Tommy: Yeah. They change some of the names here and there, which I'm sure is uh you know, copyright IP thing.

[7:02] Jimmy: Right. Um and they do they are based on people.

[7:05] Tommy: Exactly. And they do they do invent some plots for certain characters, but pretty much everyone in the show to an extent, like existed, existed, not just like is based on reality, which is a fascinating thing.

[7:18] Jimmy: It is, it is, and guess what? We'll talk about that.

[7:23] Tommy: Um so I think I mean there really isn't much to say in terms of synopsis beyond that. I mean well it's it I I find this show surprisingly difficult to follow.

[7:39] Jimmy: Okay.

[7:40] Tommy: Because you can the and this is w uh way down in our bullet points, but like humans for the past you know more than a century have been trying to make sense of like the Titanic disaster and like put some meaning behind it. And so then how you structure your story based on the true facts of reality, you know, it is this question of like do we idolize the story of Titanic because of what it is or is it ripe feeding ground for creating things that fit into the archetypes of Western storytelling and so then we cherry pick those moments. And so you know first meeting everybody at once and then starting and learning about the engine room and then like you know oh we'll there might be icebergs oh you might be a captain like what do you choose to foreshadow? Who do you make the perhaps villain like what conflict do you build in what is essentially a documentary um which makes it difficult for me to follow.

[8:37] Jimmy: And I and it's my fault but um that's where I am with the synopsis to be honest.

[8:42] Tommy: I think that's yeah I think that's fair. I think it's it's inter like to before we get too deep into any sort of analysis and stuff, like I think it's interesting to compare it to the film of the same year.

[8:51] Jimmy: Yeah.

[8:51] Tommy: Um, because they kind of approach the story from opposing places.

[8:56] Jimmy: Sure.

[8:57] Tommy: Mostly. Um, like obviously the film features more people than Jack and Rose, but the story is around centered around their romance. And the disaster is happening around them.

[9:05] Jimmy: Right. Well, you know, I mean, uh uh Titanic uh famously is a movie that starts as like a romance and turns into a disaster movie.

[9:15] Tommy: Um which I think happens less so with the musical, to be fair.

[9:20] Jimmy: Um I would say so. There's no well, apart from um two characters, there's no like new love found.

[9:26] Tommy: No.

[9:27] Jimmy: You know, I mean there's no but even like post, you know, post-Iceberg hit in the movie, it's like thriller, thriller, thriller till the end, pretty much. Whereas in in the musical, iceberg hits maybe at the end of act one, beginning of act two, but we still take a couple moments for some jaunty sidelines.

[9:46] Tommy: Yeah, absolutely.

[9:47] Jimmy: Yeah, true. Very good point. Um okay, well, here. We've beat around the bush too much. Time to dive in to the Titanic.

[9:56] Tommy: The icy waters.

[9:57] Jimmy: That was appropriate. Do you know what accent that was?

[10:00] Tommy: Uh no, do you?

[10:03] Jimmy: I think it was Irish.

[10:05] Tommy: I think it was ROI Irish.

[10:08] Jimmy: Which isn't relevant because it's from Northern Ireland. Anyway, I apologize.

[10:13] Tommy: Ireland.

[10:14] Jimmy: Um great.

[10:29] Tommy: Each day.

[10:36] Jimmy: From Leicester and Nottingham of the lads who works down in the pit knew if you're gonna ground, you'd save your soul.

[10:45] Tommy: Some way. Get out of the pit and westward I knew I could roll and ship out to sea.

[10:56] Jimmy: And then my new life was being gone.

[11:09] Tommy: Further up from the mind, you couldn't be But born to the core, there's no place for you else who's gonna be.

[11:18] Jimmy: This is why I just say hop on my segue. It's just easy. Because you th I don't offend the people of Ireland.

[11:24] Tommy: Yeah.

[11:25] Jimmy: That's what happens when you don't write a segue. Famously.

[11:28] Tommy: Okay. So, first of all, I don't think enough people talk about this show.

[11:35] Jimmy: No, it's huge. It's like it's a great show.

[11:40] Tommy: It's the so like for stars, there's that.

[11:44] Jimmy: Secondly, well, it did win best musical.

[11:46] Tommy: It did win best musical, and it feels a little lost to time, which is weird to say about a musical from 1997.

[11:53] Jimmy: Right, exactly. Like I understand when people don't remember Raisin.

[11:59] Tommy: Sure. Okay, sure.

[12:02] Jimmy: But you know, we were all alive. Do you do you think?

[12:07] Tommy: I would wager, simply because of the cultural phenomenon that was the movie, that perhaps the musical just got either lumped together or overshadowed, or both, depending upon the context.

[12:22] Jimmy: And I'm I am certain, you know, how many people went and saw this thing thinking it was the movie, right?

[12:28] Tommy: Exactly. Just by accident.

[12:30] Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. I saw, I think it was on maybe a YouTube clip or something. I saw it was like, ma uh, what a fantastic show we were there on opening night. My cousin played Rose.

[12:43] Tommy: And then I said it was like, there's literally nobody called Rose.

[12:48] Jimmy: No, my cousin played Rose. And then there was like the other people like, well there's there's literally nobody Rose.

[12:56] Tommy: Called Rose.

[12:57] Jimmy: Yeah. She didn't reply. No further comments from the commenter.

[13:00] Tommy: So um but yeah it's I think that that could be a part of it because it's like pick your adaptation kind of thing.

[13:05] Tommy: Right, exactly. But I just find it I don't know I think it's I think it's also quite significant in our musical theater chronology.

[13:14] Jimmy: Yeah.

[13:15] Tommy: I will say it doesn't it it see it seems to see enough of a like a school revival scene because it's it's got it's got a big cast. It's it's popular it's popular in boys' schools because almost everyone's a guy same way like you rotate between 1776 and Titanic and that's your season forever.

[13:37] Jimmy: And there's not a lot of kissing so you can just skip over those parts.

[13:41] Tommy: Exactly there it's there's a surprisingly little amount of objectionable material in it. But you know it does also I will say I enjoy it for reasons that maybe I'll be able to articulate by the end of this podcast I also understand why it's seems to have been pushed to the back shelf of musical theater history.

[14:01] Jimmy: Right, okay. There's I I tell me more what you mean.

[14:04] Tommy: You said it stands as a like uh an important point in musical theater history.

[14:10] Jimmy: I think so.

[14:11] Tommy: I think it's one of the last like big musicals.

[14:16] Jimmy: Okay.

[14:17] Tommy: That we've seen in terms of orchestra and full orchestration in terms of um bringing that together with an extremely large cast.

[14:27] Jimmy: Sure.

[14:27] Tommy: Bring that together with an extremely advanced set. All of these things coming together to make that big impressive spectacle musical, right? That is comes with that wall of sound.

[14:36] Jimmy: Yeah.

[14:39] Tommy: Um because nowadays it's small cast. If you're on stage, please also play an instrument. Um and you know, it's orchestrated for six uh most of the things are uh on piano anyway. Um like it's it's a lot smaller together. The sets, sure, are big, you've kept them, yeah, but the casts are small.

[14:56] Jimmy: The casts are small. I could see an argument that Titanic is like a more boring version of Cats in that stick with me.

[15:13] Tommy: I know you made a face.

[15:14] Jimmy: I made a very weird face there, ladies and gentlemen. Stick with me. The plot of Titanic is generally pretty inconsequential because of how known it is. The characters are interesting, but difficult to be fully invested in.

[15:38] Tommy: And so you're watching it for the spectacle and the kind of flashiness of it. Like I agree that it lives in that kind of big musical world, but it is less bizarre than Cats is and so like some of the reviews didn't w were not very kind to this show and it was interesting reading them about them and they do talk a lot about like it's just kind of you know it's why the James Cameron movie is so different because you're so invested in Rose and Jack and I don't know I don't I feel less invested in the characters they've created in this show.

[16:15] Jimmy: I think hmm interesting I think I can see that happening and I can see that being an opinion um I don't have the same opinion any time I've seen it and a lot of time I listened to it in the anime floods of tears.

[16:32] Tommy: I will say it it did get me in the end. Like I and I and I think I you know it is why I hedged this like I can see an argument around this which is why I wanted to pose it. But you know like the buildup of like seeing these joyful people and all their problems and all these things and then they all die like the emotional impact of that is absolutely there and it is very well structured to give you that.

[16:54] Jimmy: Um so I I I do think that is there. But it is you know it it is very unique and bizarre to s to see that I think it's the the reason and I struggle with the Titanic movie for the same reason um to see pieces of fiction that are the conclusion is is written in stone before the show starts in everyone's mind. It's the same thing with like seeing any kind of like biblical Jesus y kind of thing. Like you know what's gonna happen and part of the show is playing on that, right?

[17:28] Tommy: Um I don't know. I'm I'm trying to unpack like I've got like a nugget of a thought there that I can't quite articulate.

[17:35] Jimmy: On that point, um they they've spoken about that before, and that was one of the reasons why Peter Stone was brought on board because with 1776, he still managed to create tension surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

[17:48] Tommy: We know it has a foregone conclusion, yeah.

[17:50] Jimmy: Right, exactly. And Maurice and was like, I want that same I think, I want you to I want I want you to be going along and hoping that it doesn't happen.

[17:57] Tommy: Right. You know what I mean?

[17:58] Jimmy: Yeah.

[17:58] Tommy: Uh and you do cite. You do kind of yeah, because of the way it's structured, um I think it you go along in you're in the fantasy and then kind of you're you forget that you're on the Titanic.

[18:15] Jimmy: Right. Do you know what I mean?

[18:17] Tommy: And uh when you go back and listen to it again and focus more on the songs, you hear all of these like really tragic things because uh one of the major themes of the show is hope and uh aspiration and um you hear all of these aspirations and then you're like, oh that's devastating because a lot of these people didn't survive.

[18:40] Jimmy: Yeah.

[18:40] Tommy: Um yeah, I I think the the cat's thing is I can't agree with it.

[18:46] Jimmy: That's fair, and probably a poor example, but But I think I think just just on the point of like the sh the show itself, because it does have characters who are human, right, and they are very much human, like even if they're not the most fleshed out, yeah, uh, they're still human and they're still relatable.

[19:06] Tommy: Yes.

[19:07] Jimmy: Um I think that's why by the end you're heartbroken because of what's happened.

[19:13] Tommy: Right on top of just the immense tragedy of the whole thing anyway, yeah, you now know some of these people and you know how they've been affected.

[19:21] Jimmy: Um, and I think that's where it's different from cats a sentence I didn't expect to say in the podcast.

[19:30] Tommy: That's fair. And a poorly articulated thought. I guess like it sits in that kind of like faux Euro musical hole in my brain.

[19:38] Jimmy: Like let's say let's say so British.

[19:41] Tommy: Well let's let's say let's pull maybe a closer example Le Miz.

[19:44] Jimmy: Uh-huh.

[19:45] Tommy: Um like hugely complex ensemble show you know the biggest difference is Le Miz takes place over the course of decades maybe and Titanic Titanic takes place save for a couple you know montage moments but basically over the course of a day it feels like right the majority of the show is just the night of the sinking.

[19:45] Jimmy: Yeah they really fast I don't I don't really know the timeline of it actually because we we see them bored and then they bored and then they're on the ship.

[19:45] Tommy: And then they're on the ship and like we fast forward through a couple dinners um and and but then all of Act 2 is pretty much unity of the city.

[20:23] Jimmy: Oh, act too is just the sinking yeah yeah um you know certainly a much shorter time period than Le Miz. Um but still how much you know how much character development are you gonna get I guess maybe maybe this is the thought I'm thinking um I want all the characters to be with each other more.

[20:46] Tommy: I think that's the thing I want from the show.

[20:48] Jimmy: More crossover kind of because that's that's what Le Miz does so elegantly, right? Everyone is in this story for a reason and all play a part in it. Whereas this is very like uh uh uh uh uh tea and saucer drama, like where you've you know pulled back the fourth wall and you're just watching what happened that night untouched by artistic hands.

[21:13] Tommy: Um I think my art brain wants that.

[21:16] Jimmy: I think the issue there is that one is reality and one was a story.

[21:22] Tommy: Right, exactly.

[21:23] Jimmy: Because um obviously in Lamez, it's very easy for Victor Hugo to make all these wonderful intervening lives, but that wouldn't have happened in the Titanic when class was so distinct.

[21:32] Tommy: Right, you know what I mean. Kate McGowan would never at any point ever speak to any of the Strauss.

[21:36] Jimmy: And they've still tried to pull moments where they can, you know, right that kind of exactly.

[21:41] Tommy: Yeah, it's like Alice's character is a really good one for that because she's able to play in between all the things, and then having the staff as well, being able to, you know, have their moments.

[21:52] Jimmy: Yeah.

[21:52] Tommy: Um but I think actually they use that as a really good device in the show, um, on a kind of like artistic level. Um, because as the show progress like at the start of the show, it is very clear-cut. You have the third class song, you've got Alice and Edgar, and you've got Charles and um uh Caroline uh in your second class, and then you've got Remarkable Age, and that's just the first class, and then you've got some staff moments.

[22:19] Jimmy: Yep.

[22:20] Tommy: Uh everything is very is very segmented, yeah. Then we move into act two, and as the turmoil happens, well, that's when we start to see the dissolution of these classes, do you know what I mean?

[22:33] Jimmy: Um, which is then really beautifully quoted by Mr. Andrews in Mr. Andrew's vision.

[22:38] Tommy: Yes.

[22:39] Jimmy: I'm like, I'm into that.

[22:40] Tommy: Yeah, no. If you've written a book. Do you know what I mean? That's fun.

[22:43] Jimmy: Yeah, that is fun. You you raise good points, sir.

[22:47] Tommy: Thank you, sir.

[22:49] Jimmy: Um, yeah, because that's the thing. I actually think I really love the kind of that artistry that's gone into the creation of it.

[22:57] Tommy: Yeah.

[22:57] Jimmy: Um, both from the book and from the music. Because the music, I think there's some really smart musical things that are these like little nuggets.

[23:08] Tommy: Right.

[23:08] Jimmy: That a lot of people just listening to it won't really pick up on.

[23:12] Tommy: Yeah.

[23:13] Jimmy: But if you go into some deep analysis, you actually realize, oh wow, there's some there's some deep thought attached to this.

[23:20] Tommy: Yes.

[23:20] Jimmy: Um so just for example, the the actual way that the score is written. Um annoyingly, I can't remember the exact time signature, but the first act is written in a time signature, and then the second act is written, I think, in one two.

[23:39] Tommy: Okay.

[23:40] Jimmy: If that's the time that I don't know music theory, that would be a wild time signature. But it's like like d d d. Like think if you think of um dri uh dressing your pajamas.

[23:52] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[23:56] Jimmy: And the other one I think is just more flowing.

[23:58] Tommy: Sure.

[23:59] Jimmy: Right. So the first act you are sailing, you're sailing on and you're flowing.

[24:03] Tommy: Yeah.

[24:04] Jimmy: La la la la la la la.

[24:05] Tommy: Yeah.

[24:06] Jimmy: And then the second act is much more percussive as staccato. And so you're getting just that feel like it's the thing that you don't recognize, but you feel it in the music that actually this feels like it's amping up the tension.

[24:19] Tommy: Yeah.

[24:20] Jimmy: Um so like things like that. Um the uh use of like the Morse code and the way he weaves that.

[24:29] Tommy: That is a very musical device.

[24:30] Jimmy: It is very it's so elegant.

[24:36] Tommy: Yeah.

[24:37] Jimmy: It's smart. It's smart writing.

[24:40] Tommy: It's someone who really cares about their score.

[24:43] Jimmy: Yeah. Do you know what I mean? They're not just writing songs, they're really trying to storytell with their music, and that's that's my kind of jam.

[24:52] Tommy: Right. Well, and it is, you know, we uh uh it's also such a great way. What is the name of the first Morris Code song?

[24:59] Jimmy: Um The Night Was Alive.

[25:01] Tommy: Um, like we want to meet Mr. Morris Code, whose name is Braid, yes, Harold Bride. Um, like we need a reason to meet Bride before uh, you know, he becomes a pivotal moment in the story trying to like get these messages out.

[25:21] Jimmy: Right.

[25:21] Tommy: And so then to craft the moment where uh he meets you know, Barrett brings this message up and we learn about Morris Code, like that's that's clever musical theater exposition.

[25:33] Jimmy: Absolutely.

[25:34] Tommy: Um and again, uh on that point, extra extra points. Um so in that song, The Night Was Alive, um, when they reprise that reprieves, reprise reprise, reproach that at the end, it it's one of those classic, excellent use of reprise because the lyrics don't change, but they have a completely different meaning.

[25:57] Jimmy: Yes, you know what I mean.

[25:58] Tommy: The light the night was alive, the things are crying to be heard, it's uh harrowing when you hear it in the second act, and the first act is lovely and inspirational. And and so well hidden, like you don't see it coming, which is hard tough to do in a show where yes, it's Titanic, it sings we know.

[26:14] Tommy: You know what's happening, but when you're listening to that, it's like what a lovely song. This guy's really lovely, sweet and innocent, because it's dressed up in this beautiful love ballad. You know what I mean?

[26:21] Jimmy: Yeah, it's really smart.

[26:22] Tommy: Yeah, no, that's smart stuff.

[26:24] Jimmy: Yeah.

[26:25] Tommy: Um that's one of the reasons why I think it's a just a really good score. And I was trying to think of contemporary scores other than like Hamilton, which we know has had so much work poured into it.

[26:39] Jimmy: Sure.

[26:40] Tommy: Um where you kind of see that level of, I mean music book and lyric working together to really paint some deep pictures.

[26:52] Jimmy: It does. I will get in trouble for this. Titanic the musical does feel like what operas could be if opera folk got their heads out of their ass. Um like if we had kind of gotten over the like, you know, deep traditional roots and artistry of opera that I think holds it back, we would have more operas like Titanic. I do think this is closer to an opera than a musical, anyway. Um to me, I think it's just a musical that's really good. I think there's lots of, because I there's nothing that Maury and Peter Stone are doing here that other musicals couldn't do. And in fact, you see it.

[27:29] Tommy: Yeah, you I think you see it quite a lot in the 70s, and Stephen Schwartz does quite a lot as well of just little subtle musical things.

[27:38] Jimmy: Yeah.

[27:39] Tommy: Um But we I just feel like maybe I kind of lost that in some contemporary stuff. Maybe not, maybe there's loads, and I've just not analyzed scores enough. I do think the art form took a turn more for like this show is impactful and is not realism in any of the senses. Like, you know, from production design to structure to there's so much just, you know, audience address as well that's just in the thing. Um and I do think, you know, post the 90s, musical theater did take this turn closer to, I don't even want to say realism, because it's a different thing, but like less representationalism, which the show is filled with.

[28:24] Jimmy: Um I think out of necessity. Uh the it was inter I was watching a contemporaneous documentary, and I think it was the set designer who said something like, um it would be impossible for us to uh very accurately recreate these uh the dining room of the Titanic and all these other places on stage, not because we couldn't, not because we don't know how, but just because it would be so busy that you wouldn't be able to follow what's happening on stage. You'd be so impressed looking at the set. And so we had to like simplify and tone down, but it does feel like, and I know we bring this up maybe uh uh uh every two episodes or so, but like Titanic the musical is act three of Mr. Burns of Postelectric play. Like we we are recreating this completely historic thing that actually happened, but now in this grand operatic style that I do think is very opera and has gone out of the musical theater canon in the past 20 years.

[29:30] Tommy: Absolutely it's a big thing.

[29:32] Jimmy: Yeah. You know, I mean, and you don't uh uh be being someone who is more of a legit singer than a contemporary pop singer, suddenly I'm finding I can't sing anything nowadays. I can sure sing the Titanic, do you know?

[29:45] Tommy: Right.

[29:46] Jimmy: There's it there's just more there for Baritones.

[29:50] Tommy: That's that's the same.

[29:54] Jimmy: Um but yeah, like other than I don't know, like other than like Hunchback.

[29:59] Tommy: Yeah.

[30:00] Jimmy: Which is doing a choir and which is but like Hunchback is picking its musical style because it is appropriate to the content, right?

[30:11] Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[30:12] Jimmy: Titanic could've they could have done anything with this, right?

[30:15] Tommy: Absolutely.

[30:16] Jimmy: Yeah. And it's one of those things as well. We know from when it from when it is being written. It's not like that the zeitgeist was big, full, you know, full-bodied choral singing. What sandwiched by Rent and The Lion King on Best Musical.

[30:32] Tommy: Well that's the thing.

[30:32] Jimmy: Yeah.

[30:33] Tommy: And um you know bubbling under the surface is Jason Robert Brown, like Songs for a New World was only just released like three years ago, three, four years ago.

[30:43] Jimmy: Yeah.

[30:43] Tommy: Um things are things are times they are changing.

[30:47] Jimmy: Right.

[30:47] Tommy: Um I j I would just I don't know. I I I wonder if we would ever get another Titanic in terms of orchestra cast, yeah, vote like that big scale thing because it's just too expensive.

[31:02] Jimmy: Well, and I don't think contemporary audiences would react well to it. Um because it really I d I don't because I think contemporary audiences are looking for clever that they can understand. Uh huh. And the show is clever, but it's clever in uh you know, the delicate use of reprise. Uh it's clever in leitmotif. It's clever in like deep artsy ways. And the on the surface lyrics and plot, like there she is, towering hot, like it's the ship, there it is. Which I think audiences would react poorly to, you know.

[31:40] Tommy: Right.

[31:41] Jimmy: In that like running out like, how did they build Titanic? Like it's not it doesn't have that hidden, you know, what, two, three years later? When was uh Hairspray?

[31:53] Tommy: Um maybe so six years later.

[31:56] Jimmy: 2003?

[31:57] Tommy: Yeah, so six years later we get Hairspray, and like Good Morning Baltimore, while on the surface sounding belty and declarative, isn't like, you know, it's not called my name's Tracy, right? It's not it's not like this is the town where I live. There's still some hiding in there of like there's the flasher who lives next door. We're the flasher's not important to the story other than to set the scene for you, where like half of the show is like, and there's that person. Here are the things you have to know about that person.

[32:30] Jimmy: I th I think only in the opening.

[32:35] Tommy: Fair.

[32:36] Jimmy: Because the opening is just the exposition. I think like if you think of something like Autumn, right? Which is a um diegetic song that is almost non-diegetic because it's right, because of how heavily implied of Autumn Shall we all meet in the autumn and you know I mean, shall we all be but like um uh even like No Moon, which is a really um uh whatchal conversational song um still has these little moments of uh subtext and then something like Remarkable Age, which is just funny.

[33:14] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[33:14] Jimmy: But I do know it does it does Yeah. Cause I I know we I know what you mean about it it being kind of yeah, the opening being broad in terms of but I think that is just purely for the sake of exposition. But I do think very many feel like in real a lot of the music in the show doesn't follow that musical theater truism of like you talk until you can't talk anymore and then you sing and you sing until you can't sing anymore and then you dance. Like we we don't think they do that.

[33:43] Tommy: I don't think they do that as much.

[33:45] Jimmy: But that's just because it's mostly sung through.

[33:49] Tommy: Yeah, maybe I'm just reacting to that. You know? Cause like I mean Les Mis doesn't like um Yeah, I d I don't know. I just think I just think I I just think it won't happen because it's too expensive.

[34:06] Jimmy: Yeah, that's also fair.

[34:07] Tommy: That's it.

[34:08] Jimmy: Yeah, I could I think art has is moved on and is because we've now seen with something like Hamilton where you've got this deeply intelligent right Easter eggs for years, yeah uh writing, but it's just in a hip hop score.

[34:22] Tommy: Right, and it doesn't need a big tilting set to sell it.

[34:26] Jimmy: It certainly has high high concept technical moments and expensive stuff, but it doesn't need them. You could cut the turntable from Hamilton and it would be great.

[34:34] Tommy: Exactly, exactly.

[34:35] Jimmy: Well, here Hop on boy. It's time to segue.

[34:45] Tommy: No moon, no wind, nothing to spy things by.

[34:53] Jimmy: No wave, no so well.

[34:56] Tommy: No line where sea meets sky stillness darkness, can't see a thing, says I.

[35:07] Jimmy: No reflection, not a shadow, not a glint of the light meets the eye, and we go sailing, sailing, ever on the scene.

[35:07] Tommy: We go sailing, sailing, every because I want to talk about productions.

[35:35] Jimmy: Yes, of this show. Um so we'd be loath not to talk about the original production. Famously, there were so many rumors about the set for this show because they dug a big hole under the Luntfontaine. Um the whole set tilts. It's a big thing at the very end. The whole the whole the whole thing tilts. The choreographer in the documentary I was watching quoted it as saying, to the legal limit, one foot per inch.

[36:03] Tommy: Um, which I'm sure is true. I'm sure that's like the you know, the uh actor's union, like you can't have a rake that's taller than this, and they're like, Alright, we'll go exactly that hot that tall.

[36:12] Jimmy: Yeah. Um but it's what's the name of that song? Um uh Mr. Andrews' Vision.

[36:17] Tommy: Mr. Andrews' Vision, um, where he is uh Mr. Andrews, if you don't remember, is the guy who designed the Titanic, and like has the blueprints out, and it's like, oh, here's how we would fix this. Here was the problem with the ship, and then goes into this envisioning of like, but here's what's happening now, and you know, basically narrates all the people dying for you while above him on the original set, the whole thing starts tipping, and all these cast members start sliding across the stage. It's a gorgeous if you can find photos of it, it is it is uh I'm sure it was a brilliant sight to see in the moment. It's shocking, deeply emotionally impactful with a set design choice.

[36:58] Jimmy: Right, and that's that's and it's so crucial because I don't even think audience members going in would be expecting it.

[37:06] Tommy: Yeah.

[37:07] Jimmy: Other than the ones, like obviously, like, you know, rumors, but it wasn't like the we're going to see it to watch the set. I don't think that was the case because we weren't in that world game.

[37:16] Tommy: Right, and it's 1997, and like we're we're doing like cirque du soleil levels of uh environment manipulation.

[37:25] Jimmy: Um ten years earlier.

[37:28] Tommy: Right, right, right.

[37:29] Jimmy: Um because yeah, it is so it's so dramatic to watch and it's really powerful because it is almost as real as it could be.

[37:36] Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

[37:36] Jimmy: You know what I mean? And that is uh when you're dealing with musical theater, we're not used to that.

[37:43] Tommy: Right.

[37:43] Jimmy: Like do you know what I mean? We're not used to that kind of shocking, and I think that's why as it leads towards the end, it is so emotional because it's it's har it's harrowing, like it's a really difficult thing to watch.

[37:54] Tommy: It is, it is, you know, you if we're like Chekhov's gunning this thing, right? You have to see the people die, and you have to see them die in a really tragic, painful way, and yeah, it it fulfills that experience, right?

[38:09] Jimmy: Absolutely.

[38:10] Tommy: Um I I think t to be fair, what I would have liked less of in the original is less freezes, like um what you call them.

[38:20] Jimmy: Tab tableaus.

[38:22] Tommy: No, what are you talking about?

[38:24] Jimmy: Uh the painted backdrops.

[38:26] Tommy: Oh, yeah, backdrops.

[38:27] Jimmy: That were awful.

[38:28] Tommy: Yes, yes, they're really bad.

[38:30] Jimmy: Um they're they're really they're quite poor.

[38:32] Tommy: And I think even for nineteen ninety seven, 1998, like the they're quite poor.

[38:36] Jimmy: Yeah.

[38:36] Tommy: They made would you give me that?

[38:38] Jimmy: I w I would.

[38:39] Tommy: They made a it is clear, like I I think what you're reacting to is they made a stylistic choice in what those backgrounds were gonna look like that has either hasn't aged well or was inappropriate then.

[38:50] Jimmy: Um which is also interesting for how um I don't know, stark some of the other kind of real set design of the thing is.

[38:59] Tommy: Like it's all very white, it's all very um uh uh clean and open.

[39:04] Jimmy: It does give you a sense of like the open sea and some of the darkness of it and stuff like that.

[39:09] Tommy: And then to go full in and be like, and here's a painted 3D representation of the location we're at, there's very few things you could do in that moment that would like meld with the rest of it.

[39:20] Tommy: Um, I think the other part is like not a lot of stuff that happens in the show is terribly location dependent anyway. And so they made some weird choices there, right? Like, you know, uh, like we get it, you're on the lower deck, you're on the upper deck, you're in the dining room, you're in the, you know, the where the telegraph is, you're at the stern. That's it. That's all we need. So you don't, and like you can do that, you got a steering wheel, you got a table, like, and the people who are supposed to be there are there.

[39:49] Jimmy: Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I think so. I think actually a lot of it comes down to the director of the original production. Um, 'cause I've read that he was a really big fan of um lines, like really big fan of horizontal lines.

[40:04] Tommy: Interesting.

[40:05] Jimmy: Um, even coming down to his cast, and I think that's why, 'cause I think the opening is strange. Like, I think the like strangely directed.

[40:13] Tommy: Sure.

[40:14] Jimmy: Um, basically if you've never seen it, uh, you can tell there's a whole set piece behind the c, the clause. Right. And we're, you know, setting up for the second number here. Um, but everyone, almost the full cast are out in the what, first to front two meters of the stage and they're all huddled together, um, whilst you've got this huge paint, like reasonably poorly painted backdrop of the hull of the ship.

[40:40] Tommy: Yeah.

[40:40] Jimmy: Um, and uh, yeah, so I've heard that he just liked having people in straight lines and nose of the, you do see that a lot throughout his choreography throughout the whole thing, yeah. Um, and I don't, so I wonder if it just feeds into that, like that's just that was just his vision for it, because other productions don't follow any of those rules and I think are actually a bit.

[41:58] Jimmy: So that's where um, Heights first was when it was here.

[41:58] Tommy: Well, I think that's the question, and it is interesting that you said, you know, you wonder if this will get a revival. I do think there is a pocket for a pared down revival of this.

[41:58] Jimmy: Um, I've seen it, Tommy.

[41:58] Tommy: Well, yeah, no, exactly. Well, tell me about the show, you the version you saw.

[41:58] Jimmy: So, yeah, well, that's it, like it, the um, in London, um, they had a production at the Southwark.

[41:58] Tommy: Okay.

[41:58] Jimmy: Uh, which have we talked about the Southwark before?

[41:58] Tommy: Maybe, but you know me. My brain's like a sieve.

[41:58] Jimmy: Yeah. So it's one of our like good off West End theatres.

[41:58] Tommy: Okay.

[41:58] Jimmy: Um, and quite well known for bringing in new music, new musicals, new writing, um, but it's all reasonably small scale. It's two hundred and forty seats.

[41:58] Tommy: Oh wow.

[41:58] Jimmy: Um, super tight.

[41:58] Tommy: So small.

[41:58] Jimmy: Yeah.

[41:58] Tommy: Yeah.

[41:58] Jimmy: Um, and uh, the stage is really adaptable, which is great.

[41:58] Tommy: Oh, okay.

[42:01] Tommy: Um, and it was in thrust.

[42:03] Jimmy: Oh, okay.

[42:04] Tommy: And it worked really, really well.

[42:05] Jimmy: Um, so with Titanic, um, they set about scaling it down because I apparently Maurice has said just because they wanted to see if it could. Do you know what I mean? They were like, let's give it a go.

[42:19] Tommy: So they were able to reorchestrate it to a six-piece orchestra.

[42:22] Jimmy: Wow.

[42:22] Tommy: Um, and he was happy with that.

[42:24] Jimmy: Yeah, from I think it's something like 30 odds, yeah, like dozens piece orchestra, yeah, all the way down to six, which is insane. Um, they had a 20 person cast compared to 42.

[42:36] Tommy: Wow.

[42:36] Jimmy: Um, within that, obviously there was loads of doubling between classes. Um, I think the only people that weren't doubled were Isme, Andrews and the Captain.

[42:45] Tommy: Yep.

[42:46] Jimmy: Um, it just, it worked, and then they adapted that for a tour.

[42:55] Tommy: Okay.

[42:55] Jimmy: UK tour sweat patch, lovely.

[42:57] Tommy: Um, it's not visual, this bit, didn't need to say that.

[43:02] Jimmy: Um, it's uh, they adapted for the UK tour um, and it is pared down. They have um a sort of a deck, uh huh, an upper sort of deck that they use, um, a lower deck piece that they use, um, and then they just truck in just different bits the classic way that we know, and then I think they even had a fucking starcloth at the back, but it worked.

[43:27] Tommy: Sure.

[43:28] Jimmy: Um, may have been a psych, I can't remember.

[43:31] Tommy: I'm sure it was a star cloth at some point.

[43:32] Jimmy: Uh, but it really, really worked. This pared down um thing.

[43:39] Tommy: How do they do anything dramatic with the sinking?

[43:43] Jimmy: The sinking, yeah. So it was actually really cool. Um, so they do a number of things. So with uh the kind of key moment um in dressing your pajamas, uh, where they have like it's scored in for the ship is sinking, um, basically in the music.

[44:00] Tommy: If you've only just listened to the cast recording, you won't know what this moment is.

[44:03] Jimmy: But there is a bit um just before it just goes, Mr. Guggenheim, please build after a little silence. And in that moment, the um, it's really, really good.

[44:14] Tommy: Uh, the tea cart, which has been pushed on by two maids to stage right, um, just really slowly drifts across the stage, and they just let it happen in silence until it hits the other side.

[44:30] Jimmy: Um, and it just shows you that what once was horizontal is now not. Um, and it's a really, really good smart device.

[44:38] Tommy: So when that happened in Maine, um, the tilt wasn't lateral, it was longitudinal.

[44:46] Jimmy: I don't know if that's the right way around, but I'm using that.

[44:48] Tommy: This side's impressive.

[44:49] Jimmy: Um, it happened fronty backy, uh, upstage downstairs.

[44:54] Tommy: Downstage, okay.

[44:55] Jimmy: Um, tilted up the weight, and then and somebody caught the thing, which is it's good because there's an extra drama there as well.

[45:03] Tommy: Yeah, um, and then for Mr. Andrew's vision when the fool sinking happens, it was really dramatic because so it was just him on stage at that point.

[45:15] Jimmy: Um, and as it tilted up properly, properly tilted up, he must have been attached to something.

[45:22] Tommy: Um, because I don't understand how they would do it health and safety wise, but he was grabbing on to the kind of hull of the ship as it was almost horizontal, wow, vertical as it was almost vertical, um, falling off, and then it went to blackout.

[45:38] Jimmy: I don't think you saw him because they would obviously um, so I think it just went to blackout, but it was really freaking dramatic the way it happened and obviously with the soaring of the music and everything it was really good.

[45:51] Tommy: And so it's one of those like, like this does get done a lot amateur.

[45:56] Jimmy: Right.

[45:56] Tommy: And to find a creative way to do that.

[45:57] Jimmy: Because that's a tough technical moment to execute anyway.

[46:02] Tommy: The um, I watched bits of the, I think it was the Australian OG tour.

[46:09] Jimmy: And they do, it was quite popular, I think.

[46:10] Tommy: Yeah.

[46:11] Jimmy: They do a uh, instead of because they can't tour with the hydraulic lift under the deck and everything, so instead they have like a uh, stage left to stage right catwalk um that also has the capability to tilt which probably just lives in the flies like they probably just rig it separately.

[46:28] Tommy: Yeah, just and then and then just tilt it and then you got it.

[46:31] Jimmy: Although they did the Australian production, the tea cart moment was a little less impactful because they're all just on the flat stage and they push the tea cart all the way stage right and then the music stops and then the tea cart just m slowly moves to stage left.

[46:46] Tommy: But there's nothing to like really tell you that like it's because the boat is tipping.

[46:51] Jimmy: It just kind of looks like the tea cart is just moving on its own because everything's flat.

[46:51] Tommy: The thing that did it so there's no other nothing else is a skew.

[47:02] Jimmy: Nothing else is too, but I quite like that.

[47:05] Tommy: I think it's very nice.

[47:06] Jimmy: Save for subtle the person in the audience who started laughing.

[47:11] Tommy: Uh, and if there's the possibility of that I think you gotta do a little more.

[47:11] Jimmy: A little more.

[47:19] Tommy: Yeah, fair enough.

[47:19] Jimmy: I mean, the th, to be fair to the laughing person, um, it's a comedy number.

[47:26] Tommy: It is a comedy number, yeah.

[47:27] Jimmy: Right?

[47:28] Tommy: And that moment is supposed to be like, oh, shit.

[47:32] Jimmy: Um, it was certainly a like, ha ha ho ho, like, you know.

[47:36] Tommy: Or yeah, like oh because it it is what if I was the director and you know, it was met with a laugh.

[47:42] Jimmy: Right.

[47:43] Tommy: As long as it wasn't like a side splitting applause laugh.

[47:46] Jimmy: I probably wouldn't be too upset to know what's coming.

[47:50] Tommy: Exactly.

[47:50] Jimmy: But I know what you mean.

[47:51] Tommy: I think yeah, you would want something more.

[47:53] Jimmy: Right.

[47:54] Tommy: Something more five points.

[47:55] Jimmy: But I don't know, you know, the set designer in me is like, okay, how would we do this on our stage?

[48:01] Tommy: Or do you go full Peter and the Star Catcher and you know, like our town the shit out of it, and like everyone just runs stage left or whatever, or like you start, you know, go do it in slow motion and all the furniture starts moving because people have picked it up.

[48:17] Jimmy: Like, I think there are other ways around these moments.

[48:20] Tommy: Absolutely that well done can be equally impactful without the spectacle of it all.

[48:26] Jimmy: There was um, there was an amateur production out of Sedon um where they had a big clock piece um upstage, and at that moment the clock piece broke.

[48:38] Tommy: Fascinating.

[48:40] Jimmy: That has nothing to do with tilting.

[48:43] Tommy: Just a broken clock.

[48:46] Jimmy: It just, it didn't work.

[48:48] Tommy: Oh, I don't think the director listens to this podcast if she does.

[48:52] Jimmy: I do apologize, but it didn't work.

[48:58] Tommy: Um, but yeah, I think I think that's the thing, is it's a fun challenge.

[49:03] Jimmy: Yeah, it's a fun set design challenge.

[49:05] Tommy: I do think uh this musical has been on my brain of what would be a good uh zoom sickle.

[49:10] Jimmy: Um, I think this show would adapt very well to digital theater.

[49:16] Tommy: Because there's a lot of there's a lot of solo shit.

[49:20] Jimmy: Um, or like two people scenes.

[49:23] Tommy: Right.

[49:24] Jimmy: Um, it's it is uh epic to the point where you can uh, you know, disbelieve some of the squariness of it, if that makes sense.

[49:35] Tommy: Uh-huh.

[49:36] Jimmy: Um, you know, I think there's also a like uh, meanwhile back at the ranch kind of feel to the whole thing, which I think is well suited to video medium, like what's happening in the boiler room, what's happening in the, you know, on the upper decks, what's happening in, you know, in the uh, uh, telegraph room.

[49:54] Tommy: Um, that I think is well suited to that.

[49:57] Jimmy: Um, it's a story people know and has some clickbaity stuff.

[50:01] Tommy: Um, like as much as we've like dove into some of the the cool craziness of the technical stuff, I don't think it, I don't think it needs a lot of it if any of it.

[50:11] Jimmy: Not at all.

[50:11] Tommy: Right at all.

[50:12] Jimmy: Uh, the the emotion is in the music in the story, like um, yeah, because uh, so I've done this in concert.

[50:20] Tommy: Uh, zero set minimal no staging.

[50:25] Jimmy: Right.

[50:26] Tommy: Um, and it was still extremely emotional.

[50:29] Jimmy: Right.

[50:29] Tommy: So yeah, I agree with you.

[50:31] Jimmy: I think that would totally work.

[50:32] Tommy: Do it.

[50:33] Jimmy: Do it.

[50:34] Tommy: Call, we'll consult for a modest fee.

[50:51] Jimmy: It's fascinating.

[51:35] Tommy: Why do people care about the Titanic?

[51:37] Jimmy: Why do people care about the Titanic?

[51:39] Tommy: It's fascinating.

[51:40] Jimmy: And people care.

[51:42] Tommy: I've seen this in Tinder bios.

[51:45] Jimmy: It's like an interest.

[51:46] Tommy: Yeah, sure.

[51:47] Jimmy: I'm not kidding.

[51:48] Tommy: I mean, people are obsessed about the movie.

[51:51] Jimmy: Um, like deeply so.

[51:54] Tommy: But people are obsessed with the thing.

[51:57] Jimmy: Yeah, like the events.

[51:58] Tommy: Yeah.

[51:58] Jimmy: There's our one of the densest wikis I've seen.

[52:02] Tommy: Oh, and so many splinter articles.

[52:04] Jimmy: There's a whole Wikipedia article about the damn staircase.

[52:09] Tommy: Oh, I mean, the staircase is a huge significant.

[52:13] Jimmy: Very important.

[52:14] Jimmy: My boyfriend won't let me live it down that I didn't feature that staircase on my top five musical theater staircases. And I'm now coming to the realization that also I failed to include probably the only musical theater song called "The Staircase." But that's for another discussion. People love talking about the Titanic, and not even because I was curious about like, is this just a modern thing? Like, is this just people of the James Cameron film? But since day one, there have been plays and books and folk songs, and like people are really interested in this. And I do. I was also interested, like, uh, the Wikipedia article is very weaselly. It calls it, um, the biggest, what does it say? It's like the biggest peacetime casualty event at sea in the West of its time.

Like, it's clearly like talking around. And indeed, um, because I looked it up, there's a boat called the Texing that sank in the South China Sea in 1822. More people died, about 1400 people died. Um, there was a, uh, I'm gonna say this wrong, but the SS Kichimaru, um, which also was somewhere in Asia, uh, sunk just months later, in September of the same year. And we don't know how many people died because there aren't records of it. They're pretty sure more than a thousand, but like, so why the Titanic? And certainly there is this like, you know, call it Schadenfreude or, uh, you know, human hubris come to fruition, like I say parabolic, like a parable, not like the graph, um, but like parabolic tale of like, uh, the, you know, Icarus flew too close to the sun and built the biggest moving thing, and like I think that is a fascinating, uh, human interest in the thing.

And that's definitely what the musical, that's one of the key parts of the musical, and I, you know, it's looking at mankind's, you know, constant need to be better, and you know, people call the Titanic a cry to God, right? With how big it was and how, you know, almost ridiculous it was in its ambition.

[54:42] Tommy: Yeah.

[54:43] Jimmy: And like it, it's, but people are still fascinated with it.

[54:45] Tommy: Yeah.

[54:45] Jimmy: And continue to dramatize it. I mean, there was, um, uh, some scholar, I have his name here, um, Stephen Bu Bile Beal. Um, he talks a lot about how, uh, there's this like Titanic exists in culture as an attempt to create the meaning behind the thing that happened. Cause like this was just an accident, it just ran into an iceberg. It just ran into an iceberg, right?

[55:11] Tommy: Right.

[55:12] Jimmy: Natural disasters happen all the time, sometimes caused by human folly, sometimes not, and yeah, they just happen. Um, but as a, you know, as a culture, we're trying to like create meaning around this sort of thing. Um, that's exactly what we are. That's all we have. And he says the disaster's been called an event that, uh, in its tragic clockwork-like certainty, stopped time and became a haunting metaphor. Not just one metaphor, but many. Uh, collecting metaphors, each vying to define the disaster's broader societal and political significance, to insist that here was the true meaning, the real lesson. And I find that so fascinating.

[55:54] Tommy: Yeah.

[55:54] Jimmy: Like that we're like trying to make sense of it.

[55:58] Tommy: Exactly, but that's what we do, do you know what I mean? Because we are pattern solvers. We are storytellers, and that's, we need, we can't just let something happen, especially something that is significant. Um, you know.

[56:10] Jimmy: Uh, actually I think the musical does a really good point of flagposting that idea and that concept in the song "The Blame," um, which is really, really good. So if you've never listened to it before, it's, um, Ismate, who is the, um, owner, who's the managing director of the Titanic, he sailed for free on the Titanic, um, Mr. Andrews, who's the architect, the designer, um, and Captain Smith, who is shockingly the captain. Um, I know, Twist, uh, and, um, they come together at the bridge, uh, to basically work out what the hell's going on and try and pin the blame on somebody, right?

[56:56] Tommy: Um, and in true musical theater fashion, we know that if there's ever a blame song, there's nobody to blame but yourselves, you know.

[57:06] Jimmy: That's the kind of thing. Um, so that, you know, they talk about like Isme wanted it to go faster, um, the captain sailed, you know, he charted a course that went too far north, so it's obviously going to be ice risks. Everyone's saying Mr. Andrews who didn't build it correctly, you should have had more there, you know, um, and they all say, but you did it because you wanted more space for state rooms for the first class, so we couldn't have this, and all, you know, I mean, just classically, but basically what they realize is that it doesn't actually matter because the ship's sinking is happened and the ship is sinking, and now we need to work out what to do.

[57:44] Tommy: Um, but what I think is really interesting about that, that leads on from your point, is in true storytelling fashion, we always look for a villain, yes.

[57:55] Jimmy: Right.

[57:56] Tommy: And the villain of the Titanic, frequently, in most of its adaptations, is May.

[58:02] Jimmy: Right.

[58:03] Tommy: Who, because it's extremely well documented, actually, there's no evidence that he tried to make it go faster.

[58:12] Jimmy: There's zero evidence of that whatsoever.

[58:15] Tommy: Um, he, yes, he was the managing director, but he was still a significant part in getting people onto the lifeboats.

[58:23] Jimmy: He was as much of a hero as any of the other people who died.

[58:26] Tommy: Um, yet for some reason he is villainized in all these adaptations.

[58:33] Jimmy: And I found out that actually, um, he had some altercations before the Titanic sailed with someone from the American press, like a big, big name of like, I can't remember exactly who it was, but someone who owned a lot of the newspapers and they were hell-bent on dragging his name through the mud when he came back.

[58:54] Tommy: Um, and, uh, like because even to the point where, so obviously he survived, um, and that for being a man, that's significant because it was women and children at first.

[59:05] Jimmy: Um, people like, oh, he forced somebody out of the boat so he could get on.

[59:12] Tommy: Um, that literally isn't the case that he was at a lifeboat, it was one of the, um, collapsible boats.

[59:21] Jimmy: Uh, there was plenty of room on it, he was around and waited to see if MDLs could go on.

[59:26] Tommy: There was nobody else to go on.

[59:27] Jimmy: So, in his view, it was like, well, either I die to spite myself.

[59:31] Tommy: Right.

[59:32] Jimmy: Or I just try and survive, and shockingly enough, he tried to survive and he survived.

[59:37] Tommy: Um, there's no, you know, I mean, but he gets painted as this villain.

[59:41] Jimmy: Um, testament to the fact that when he came back to Liverpool afterwards, he was met with applause and everyone was like, hooray.

[59:49] Tommy: In the States he was villainized.

[59:51] Jimmy: It's, and I'm like, that's, isn't that fascinating that now because obviously Hollywood is an American place, this is the man that gets kind of chosen as the villain.

[1:00:02] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:00:02] Jimmy: Um, I think it's a tragic shame, right?

[1:00:08] Tommy: Do you know what I mean?

[1:00:09] Jimmy: Because it's like, uh, from our need to storytell, from our need to have these people who fit into these characters, the heroes and the villains, um, we need someone and he's the man that's been chosen, and I think that's a shame.

[1:00:22] Tommy: It is like, it's such a, it's such a weird like societal effort in like trauma recovery that we're trying to compartmentalize and create the story around something that w is far too complex to do so.

[1:00:36] Jimmy: Um, so many things must have happened that night, none of them, you know, particularly ordained or particularly dramatically interesting.

[1:00:46] Tommy: Um, but in order for us to kind of cope with what is essentially a, you know, huge human disaster and tragedy, we do have to create these heroes and villains and we tell these stories as a way to like cope with the thing.

[1:00:59] Jimmy: Exactly, exactly.

[1:01:00] Tommy: It is, I mean, I really do actually recommend going on to the wiki.

[1:01:05] Jimmy: Um, there's a whole rabbit hole in the show notes. Did you, did you fall down, um, uh, conspiracy theories about the Titanic?

[1:01:12] Tommy: Do you know what?

[1:01:13] Jimmy: I haven't.

[1:01:14] Tommy: I've actually, so this is just a Jibby thing, but I've stopped myself from looking at any sort of conspiracy theories.

[1:01:21] Jimmy: Because I'm worried that I'll be cover because I used to be really, really good for them.

[1:01:26] Tommy: This one's fun because it's more than a hundred years ago.

[1:01:29] Jimmy: Um, my favorite one I read. Is it okay if I tell you one that I read?

[1:01:33] Tommy: Yeah, okay, go for it.

[1:01:34] Jimmy: But if you change my life. The White Star Line owned the Titanic, right?

[1:01:39] Tommy: Uh huh.

[1:01:41] Jimmy: Was it the Olympia?

[1:01:43] Tommy: The Olympia?

[1:01:44] Jimmy: Yeah, the Olympia.

[1:01:45] Tommy: The Olympic.

[1:01:46] Jimmy: The Olympic.

[1:01:46] Tommy: Um, I think it's just the Olympic, yeah.

[1:01:48] Jimmy: Which is the same boat, basically. Um, they were sister ships. Several months before the Titanic was set to set sail, the Olympic was involved in some like harbor-based accident, um, where it was damaged very badly.

[1:02:01] Tommy: And it was the Olympics' fault.

[1:02:03] Jimmy: Or it was the White Star Line's fault, so the insurance company didn't pay out. Thus ends real life. Now begins conspiracy theory.

[1:02:11] Tommy: The White Star Line, in an effort to recoup their losses, switched the ships, poorly repaired the Olympic, called it the Titanic, sent it to sail, and then committed insurance fraud by sinking it.

[1:02:25] Jimmy: Right.

[1:02:25] Tommy: I have heard this one actually.

[1:02:27] Jimmy: I have heard this one.

[1:02:28] Tommy: Um, obviously that didn't happen.

[1:02:31] Jimmy: But it is, it is part of the greater, like people are trying to make sense of this incident.

[1:02:37] Tommy: Absolutely.

[1:02:38] Jimmy: Absolutely.

[1:02:39] Tommy: I mean, and that's the thing, is like because obviously it was a horrible tragedy and nobody really knew what was happening.

[1:02:47] Jimmy: You know, people slept through the crashing because so many people didn't know that they crashed.

[1:02:52] Tommy: Right.

[1:02:52] Jimmy: Um, because it was so, it wasn't like, you know, the, that picture of the iceberg that you see all the time, like this massive thing.

[1:03:00] Tommy: It wasn't that.

[1:03:01] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:03:01] Tommy: Um, but, uh, the, yeah, obviously, because I've got so many accounts from survivors or people who, um, heard, people who died, but maybe were on the boat or from the dead.

[1:03:16] Jimmy: Right.

[1:03:17] Tommy: All of these different things. There's so much misinformation that you just, we don't know the facts.

[1:03:23] Jimmy: We absolutely don't.

[1:03:23] Tommy: Um, and so therefore we have to try and, oh, we'll piece this together to make this beautiful closed storyline that is the Titanic and adapt it four million times.

[1:03:36] Jimmy: Right.

[1:03:37] Tommy: Um, it is.

[1:03:38] Jimmy: I was like talking through this last night with my boyfriend and like trying to think, you know.

[1:03:43] Tommy: Is there anything else quite like the Titanic, right?

[1:03:48] Jimmy: That has the cultural significance and adapts out well, and perhaps we should talk about some of them.

[1:03:56] Tommy: I think that sounds to me like a segue.

[1:04:04] ♪ Musical number ♪

[1:04:59] Tommy: And after that, I cannot say.

[1:05:17] Tommy: Which I hadn't thought about, and he brought up.

[1:05:19] Jimmy: Um, Godzilla movies are a direct reaction to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[1:05:30] Tommy: Yes, yes, true.

[1:05:32] Jimmy: And are an artistic societal way, like the OG, uh, you know, all the kaiju films, Mofra and all that stuff, of a society processing fear of nuclear radiation, fear of, you know, giant, uh, mass destruction, nuclear aberrations, destroying society, and thus we have what we now know today is the entire like Godzilla franchise and stuff. And it was a different way of like, you know, combating or, uh, uh, uh, reckoning with that same tragedy, that same like hugely culturally significant tragedy of the bombings of Japan.

[1:06:01] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:06:15] Jimmy: Yeah, that's a good point. I would never have I would never have really thought of that. But yeah, that's exactly what it is. But it's the same thing. It's coping with a tragedy. I mean, I should I should qualify. It's not the same thing. Humans didn't put the iceberg there. Humans did bomb Japan, and that's bad.

[1:06:35] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:06:35] Jimmy: But yeah, um, but the reaction is similar. Uh-huh. And how you process, you know, because, uh, it's still a disaster is a disaster, it is a disaster at the end of the day.

[1:06:43] Tommy: Yes, you know, um, and we still need to process these things. Uh, and a lot of the way that we do that is using art. Remember art?

[1:06:51] Jimmy: Um, anyway, uh, but I think, um, it's yeah, I think looking at it from a musical theater perspective, because I had this thought of like what significant historic landmarks, milestones, um, tragedies, yeah, have we musicalized? And I was like, that's actually not as many as I thought there would have been.

[1:07:17] Tommy: Yeah, not a lot.

[1:07:18] Jimmy: We don't, I mean, I don't know if this comes as a huge surprise, but we don't really use musical theater as a way of coping with tragedy as much. Now what I would argue is I don't know why. We could. I mean, you know, you've written here or I've written here, one of us, like Come From Away certainly is coping with the city. I think Come From Away is a fantastic example in a really good comparison to Titanic, um, because it's a very similar, not story in terms of plot, but in terms of storytelling.

[1:07:50] Tommy: First, you're looking at many different people who you're taking a cross-section, all these different people who are affected by this horrible, horrible thing. Um, some of the, I think are some of the people in Come From Away real, like based on real people as well.

[1:08:06] Jimmy: I believe almost all of them are real. Like there's all sorts of clips of them, like, you know, Jen Kalella meeting what's the fair.

[1:08:12] Tommy: Okay, great. Well, I mean, there you go, like that is it's a very similar, very similar thing there. Um, and it also deeply emotional, you know what I mean?

[1:08:24] Jimmy: Right. It's but also so cathartic too. Like that's the thing.

[1:08:28] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:08:28] Jimmy: Because the thing is, especially with something like 9/11, if you said, okay, we're gonna make a musical about 9/11.

[1:08:39] Tommy: Mm-hmm.

[1:08:40] Jimmy: You, uh, the, you know, like Right. It seems like like if you say there, there is what's the way to put this. We seem to have like an unspoken but agreed upon set of lines and rules and boundaries about when and how and where it's okay to adapt tragic events.

[1:09:05] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:09:05] Jimmy: Um, and like 9/11 is probably on the other side of that line for a very long time.

[1:09:10] Tommy: For a long time.

[1:09:11] Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, uh, I think that's it. It's tricky because it obviously the way that Come From Away is told it is not in bad taste. I would never argue that. Um, I think it's a really good way of telling that story, um, and the effect of that story from removing it from New York. Whereas telling the story of the Titanic, uh, with the Titanic, yeah, is much more difficult, I would say I'd say it kinda needed to happen almost a hundred years later.

[1:09:47] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:09:49] Jimmy: Um, and it was interesting, there have been plenty of stage adaptations of the story, so Wikipedia tells me that it's impossible to follow none, none seem terribly successful, I guess, or terribly documented at least, which would lead me to believe, um, you know, that like performance-wise, that didn't really, uh, uh, follow through. Although I did read of, and I didn't understand this, but there was a record you could play at home and reenact the Titanic, and I didn't follow that through, maybe I should have.

[1:10:17] Tommy: Um, yeah, that's as far as I got. I don't know, you find out yeah.

[1:10:22] Jimmy: Um, but I do think, you know, like if the if art is a way of coping with tragedy, of processing it, of dealing with it, of allowing you to like put a, uh, a mental pin in it, right? Like this musical does that, and it's interesting to think about it like I don't know about you, I don't feel terribly affected as a person by the actual events of the Titanic.

[1:10:49] Tommy: No, right?

[1:10:51] Jimmy: They haven't like created a huge tragedy in my life. My un, my understanding and knowing of them is mostly based on these artistic interpretations.

[1:10:59] Tommy: Absolutely, absolutely.

[1:11:00] Jimmy: Um, so it doesn't, you know, feel like there is a wound to heal there as much. And yet, I do feel like Titanic the musical has helped me like cope with a tragedy.

[1:11:13] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:11:14] Jimmy: Well, I find like the more I deep dive into that Wikipedia, the more I find myself getting like, oh my god, like it's so yeah, heartbreaking. The whole thing is just deeply, deeply heartbreaking. Um, there's no denying as you journey through that musical by the end, it is pure cathartic. You have that like sweat dripping off, you're like, holy smokes, right?

[1:11:39] Tommy: The end because you it's it's so tense, and it's there's so much going on.

[1:11:43] Jimmy: Right.

[1:11:44] Tommy: Um, and it does do like the musical allows you to do the thing where all the casts can come out and bow at the end, the Little Shop of Horrors affordance. Um, which also like the movie, uh, the James Cameron movie has to go out of its way to create as well. It has to wrap the entire story in another story so you don't feel like shit when it's done.

[1:12:04] Jimmy: Exactly.

[1:12:05] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:12:06] Jimmy: Um, so yeah, I don't know. I just think I thought we could chat for a little bit about where we think things could be adapted. Because the one that hit me first of all, I was like, Yeah, space.

[1:12:19] Tommy: Mm.

[1:12:20] Jimmy: Should never really musicalize space.

[1:12:23] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:12:25] Jimmy: Yeah. Right.

[1:12:26] Tommy: I like in a sci-fi context.

[1:12:28] Jimmy: I mean in a like, like the space race. Like one of the most significant parts of like our contemporary history.

[1:12:35] Tommy: Right.

[1:12:36] Jimmy: That's fair. Well, are you looking to musicalize a tragedy or just like a piece of history?

[1:12:40] Tommy: Like a historic, uh, like a landmark historic moment, you know what I mean?

[1:12:44] Jimmy: Like if we landing on the moon or something.

[1:12:47] Tommy: Right, exactly. Space. You know what I mean? Like that I think that's a really, I don't know, I just think there's like I'm surprised that that hasn't happened.

[1:12:57] Jimmy: Yeah. I do wonder so here's here this was the other half of my boyfriend and I's discussion of like coping with, um, uh, I don't know, um, uh this specific kind of human tragedy. Uh-huh. Which feels like the, um, it feels like mechanical human tragedy. The f the failure of human hubris in its engineering feats.

[1:13:20] Tommy: Okay, let's say.

[1:13:25] Jimmy: Um, and also in that world is, um, let's say the Apollo thirteen disaster.

[1:13:30] Tommy: Right.

[1:13:30] Jimmy: Um, or even, you know, they're a fictionalized version, but even in like Gravity, right, which is perhaps a larger fictionalized coping with some of the fears of space.

[1:13:39] Tommy: Space, uh-huh.

[1:13:39] Jimmy: Um, yeah. Have you seen Gravity?

[1:13:41] Tommy: Yeah, I love it.

[1:13:42] Jimmy: Excellent. Um, like, and one of the things those do have in common is they happen, and with the Titanic, they're tragedy that happens slow enough that you can make a story while the tragedy's happening.

[1:13:55] Tommy: Um, but it is true.

[1:13:58] Jimmy: Yeah. And it's why, um, as he brought up, we don't have a movie about the Challenger disaster, um, which was done in the blink of an eye. Um, and if you want to build something like that, you have to find the drama around the event as opposed to the drama in the event.

[1:14:17] Tommy: That's a good point, actually.

[1:14:18] Jimmy: That is good. Because yeah, because if you think of something like the Challenger, like even if you told the stories of the people of who died, right, the ending is still the fact that they died.

[1:14:30] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:14:31] Jimmy: And so then there's no, and like I say this all as a, you know, writer adapting these things, fully acknowledging that like there are tricky issues to talk about. That there are tough issues to talk about with adapting a tragedy of any, um, but it's why, you know, it's why the Chernobyl series was so successful, because it happened over some time.

[1:14:53] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:14:54] Jimmy: And so you got to like the, the point of any of these kinds of stories would be to put you there while the disaster is happening. That's the, that's Twister. That's the disaster movie mantra, right?

[1:15:05] Tommy: Absolutely.

[1:15:06] Jimmy: Um, and so then, you know, you, you have to find a very particular actual human natural disaster that, and I'm sure that's why Titanic has such an appeal, because it did happen over a very appropriate amount of time for the attention span of a human being.

[1:15:26] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:15:27] Jimmy: Um, like it has kind of fallen into this weird sweet spot. And I think as well, it was about real people that happen to real people. I mean, I think it would, and this is again it's a horrible idea to see, but I think there's truth to it. If it was just a crude ship.

[1:15:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:15:43] Jimmy: Like it we didn't it wouldn't hit the mentality. And it is, I mean, some of the other stuff I read, like it's been interesting. There were one of the things I read pegged the Titanic disaster as being a huge turning point in the end of the 19th century, moving from the 1800s into the 1900s. And a lot of that has to do with the vast and important development of ship travel and trading, and like, you know, it is, uh, I wish my US hist or my Americ my, uh, uh, world history was more framed around this, but like clearly ship travel and oceanic travel has been hugely important in how our society exists today. You know, start with, uh, the terrible practice of bringing bringing in slaves from Africa into America, like all of, you know, all of American colonialism was based upon trade and, you know, how many wars have been started over, uh, uh, uh, uh, ship passing and, you know, who has the right to this part of the ocean.

[1:16:57] Tommy: Um, and so there was this huge push to make travel by ship better and more efficient and more important and and easier and more, you know, and that that's the plot of the Titanic is i is you're seeing these, uh, immigrants searching for a better world in America or enjoying this luxury.

[1:17:15] Tommy: Um, and suddenly this huge important development in human history hits the most solid of tragic walls of like, you know, don't fly too close to the sun, you'll run into an iceberg instead.

[1:17:30] Jimmy: Um, I had a point to all this that I lost somewhere in the middle there. That it was like it had a more significant telling at the turn of the century. That it's it's time has been contextualized along all of these lines. You know, and and that I think is is why we tell the story. Um, I think there's, uh, I think there is almost some truth, and this might be me storytelling the Titanic, but sure, um, I would say that like the Titanic is such an emblem of the class structure that existed, particularly in and I'm speaking mostly from the UK here, but within the UK, you know, we had our very, very solid working lower classes, we had the aspiring middle class, we had the upper class, um, and they were so beautifully illustrated on that ship.

[1:18:22] Tommy: Um, and the fact that all but one of the first class women survived, and the fact that hardly any of the third class passengers survived shows you that there is an issue with class in the UK, um, which has now well it in some but it certainly to the from the Victorian structure that it was.

[1:18:47] Jimmy: Sure.

[1:18:47] Tommy: It is now significantly better. And I wonder if there is a, you know, I mean, I wonder if that did wake people up to actually this isn't the way to do things.

[1:19:01] Jimmy: There is inequality, there's a deep inequality here.

[1:19:04] Tommy: Well, and it was it was a, you know, and certainly I'm now like we are storytelling the Titanic. We're putting meaning onto something that it just happened, yeah.

[1:19:10] Jimmy: Right.

[1:19:14] Tommy: But it does elucidate those, um, illucidate? Neither of those might be words.

[1:19:19] Jimmy: I think lucidate, yeah, elucidate.

[1:19:22] Tommy: Um, uh, the problems with this class structure, and perhaps like artificially burst that bubble, and that was that in a way that was beneficial to society. Because certainly, you know, I can speak to American classism today, and it is wildly unequal, and like we have, you know, terrible disparities. Um, and you know, Jeff Bezos hasn't gotten on a ship that sank, right?

[1:19:44] Jimmy: Maybe when he does get in a, uh, his space rocket to the moon and it explodes, we'll have a moment of like, oh, money can't buy you everything.

[1:19:51] Tommy: Right.

[1:19:51] Jimmy: Right. Like are we headed towards another, uh, uh, uh illustration of man's hubris, but like the logical side of me says, like, no, no, but we weren't either we weren't with the Titanic either, because it was just a boat that sank.

[1:19:52] Tommy: It was just a boat that sank, exactly.

[1:20:08] Jimmy: Like, yeah. I mean, it's interesting the current times that we're in. Um, when the pandemic started, it was called the Great Leveler because it affected everyone. It didn't affect, but now as time has gone on, we've seen, oh, actually, it affects different people differently depending on your class and your race, you know.

[1:20:29] Tommy: And, uh, it isn't the great leveler that we once thought if you are rich and white, you're gonna be a lot better off. I will say, rewinding a bit, I do think you mentioned that like the Titanic was a moment of showing the difficulties with the class structure in the UK. I think we react to it because we still see it as a parable for the class structures today.

[1:20:57] Tommy: And like it doesn't read as like, um, you know, ho ho, this is how it used to be, and then they got their, and I'm oversimplifying, but like then the rich got their comeuppance and had to jump in the lifeboats too, with you know poor and rich aside right or whatever. It doesn't read that way.

[1:21:11] Jimmy: It reads as like, yep, and then still to this day, we have, you know, same song, different verse, absolutely inequities, and I think that part of that also is one of the threads that weaves through that makes it such a, uh, uh, a parabolic story that you can see today in what happened then, um, just you know, reset on whatever is going on now.

[1:21:43] Tommy: Hey.

[1:21:45] Jimmy: Some story, something, you know.

[1:21:48] Tommy: And I will say, hold on, I know we're not on video, but I have a prop because I want to know what you think about this deeply.

[1:21:55] Jimmy: I think I know what you're about to bring out.

[1:21:57] Tommy: Here it comes.

[1:21:58] Jimmy: I think we've also spoken about it before.

[1:22:01] Tommy: If this is the right thing, listeners, Tommy's a way to get it just now. Um, this is the, uh, if I'm just saying, if this is the right thing, this is the best adaptation of the Titanic that exists.

[1:22:13] Tommy: I'm holding in my hand Titanic the board game.

[1:22:17] Jimmy: Done.

[1:22:18] Tommy: Which I purchased from Target for $20.

[1:22:21] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:22:22] Tommy: It's mostly based on the movie.

[1:22:25] Jimmy: Um, it's entirely based on the movie because you get points for quoting the movie. There's a game piece in this called the door, and if you have the door, you don't need to escape to a lifeboat and you survive.

[1:22:35] Jimmy: Now, is this okay?

[1:22:39] Tommy: I mean, I think the answer is no, right? Like, but in in like the 21st century nowadays, I'm like, well, who's like, no one would really bat an eyelid at this. No one would question it.

[1:22:49] Jimmy: Right.

[1:22:50] Tommy: Because we've gone so far beyond. Right. It's such a weird, like, I've played it. It's a fun game, and every time I've played it, like the people around the table, we've had this discussion about like, is this okay? Like, people died. A lot of people died, and we're replacing them with a tiny little wooden meeples. And like, ooh, I'm gonna win, because I'm gonna save more people. I'm playing as Jack.

[1:23:13] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:23:14] Tommy: Right? And like where that's that's that, you know, the unwritten, uh, undiscussed, like, where the line of adaptation is drawn. We're okay with the movie, but somehow the board game seems a step too far.

[1:23:27] Jimmy: Well, yeah, because like the board game is the is the it's it's pulling the memes. It's pulling the joke, you know. I mean, it's pulling the commentary on the adaptation, which isn't the adaptation. There's no R in that. You know what I mean? Um, the same way that you see all these memes about like, oh, there's plenty of space in that door, la ha ha ha, look at this.

[1:23:47] Tommy: Right.

[1:23:47] Jimmy: Who else can we fill? You know, let's put Bernie Sanders on the door, you know what I mean?

[1:23:50] Tommy: Right, in this little chair, yeah.

[1:23:52] Jimmy: And then you're like, yeah, but let's go back 90 years and we'll realize, oh, wait.

[1:23:59] Tommy: Right.

[1:23:59] Jimmy: This thing that happened. It would be like if, you know, there was a, a, uh, a deep drama made about September eleventh that in the next decade was developed into a board game.

[1:24:12] Tommy: Right.

[1:24:12] Jimmy: Or if you get fucking Chernobyl memes, like I hope they don't exist.

[1:24:16] Tommy: Good god.

[1:24:17] Jimmy: I'm, uh, I'm sure they do. Although that series is so, uh, gritty that perhaps it won't. But like, you know, I wouldn't, uh, uh, what was I watching? It was Search Party, uh, and they made a a very funny joke about the Hindenburg explosion.

[1:24:35] Tommy: Right.

[1:24:36] Jimmy: I can't tell you anything about the Hindenburg. Can I but I'm sure it was tragic.

[1:24:41] Tommy: Yeah.

[1:24:41] Jimmy: But I but I laughed at the joke. Like, you know, it is interesting to figure out where to draw this line between when can you laugh at a tragedy?

[1:24:51] Tommy: Yep, exactly.

[1:24:52] Jimmy: Um, who knows. But what I can say is that Titanic the musical is great.

[1:25:02] Tommy: It is delightful.

[1:25:04] Jimmy: Um, and well worth listening, because I think there'll be a lot of people who won't listen to it. It's a great listen. It's it's it's it's very lush.

[1:25:13] Tommy: Sing it. If you're a singer, oh sing it.

[1:25:16] Jimmy: Yeah.

[1:25:17] Tommy: Brian Darcy James, Michael Severus, young versions of them. Victoria Clark. Good cast, mate. I was thrown for a loop in this documentary. Michael Severus has facial hair and hair on his head.

[1:25:30] Jimmy: I know.

[1:25:31] Tommy: Gone are the days of Sept August, September, what is it called?

[1:25:35] Jimmy: August?

[1:25:35] Tommy: September?

[1:25:36] Jimmy: I think it's called September.

[1:25:38] Tommy: I don't know what you're talking about.

[1:25:39] Jimmy: An aforementioned fringe.

[1:25:41] Tommy: Oh, it's been so long.

[1:25:43] Jimmy: That's true. I think that was the last call, so that'll mean nothing to the people on the podcast. I will say, and I'll find a video. When can you laugh at history? Well, on musical Mondays at Sidetrack in Chicago.

[1:25:56] Tommy: My favorite series of callbacks were to the Tony Award performance of Titanic. Um, the great lyrics. Because I can't listen to the song without hearing them.

[1:26:07] Jimmy: We're gonna drown, we're gonna drown, we're gonna drown, we're gonna drown.

[1:26:12] Tommy: Aboard that ship!

[1:26:13] Jimmy: Glug glug gogg-glug, glug-gog glug.

[1:26:17] Tommy: Musical Mondays.

[1:26:19] Jimmy: Oh, it's so funny. At the very end, everyone waves their, uh, uh, napkins in the air and goes, Bonvoyage! Watch out for icebergs, and then they throw them up in the air.

[1:26:31] Tommy: And that's where the taste level lies. Everyone, uh, when they're walking on stage, you shout out, it's the Asters, the Guggenheims, and Molly Brown!

[1:26:41] Jimmy: She's unsinkable.

[1:26:45] Tommy: I mean, also the fact that Molly Brown doesn't feature the show.

[1:26:50] Jimmy: She doesn't feature.

[1:26:51] Tommy: She doesn't feature. It's such a own show. She does have her own show, which came first.

[1:26:54] Jimmy: In the 60s, I believe, right?

[1:26:58] Tommy: I think so, yeah.

[1:26:59] Jimmy: Yeah. Titanic is better.

[1:27:01] Tommy: I have never listened to the Unsinkable Molly Brown.

[1:27:04] Jimmy: Her house is down the street from where I live, no joke.

[1:27:08] Tommy: Now everyone is gonna stalk you at life.

[1:27:10] Jimmy: I mean, you can Google the Molly Brown house on the internet. It's in Denver.

[1:27:15] Tommy: But if you say it's down the street, all I need to do is walk up that street and then I'm at Tommy's eyes.

[1:27:19] Jimmy: Yeah, there's a big sign outside. So then this one, then that one's Molly Brown's, and this one's Tommy.

[1:27:23] Tommy: Exactly.

[1:28:33] Jimmy: That Jimmy was Titanic the musical.

[1:28:36] Tommy: It was indeed. Thank you for sailing.

[1:28:40] Jimmy: Does your, uh, Americana, uh, uh, television show viewing, uh, has that brought you to Seinfeld yet?

[1:28:48] Tommy: I was I'm too I'm at this same fell sweet spot, I think, in terms of age.

[1:28:52] Jimmy: That's fair.

[1:28:53] Tommy: Um, are you you're aware of the character of George Jason Alexander?

[1:28:57] Jimmy: Yes.

[1:28:57] Tommy: I believe I remembering this right. There's an episode where George takes a blind girl on a date to see the movie Titanic. And the joke is he has to describe everything for her.

[1:29:04] Jimmy: Right.

[1:29:08] Tommy: And she comes out of the movie and she says, Boy, it sure took that ship a long time to sink.

[1:29:16] Jimmy: It's because all he could that's all he said the entire time is that the ship was and it's still sinking.

[1:29:21] Tommy: And it's still s it's very funny.

[1:29:22] Jimmy: Any anyway, read the quiz question.

[1:29:25] Tommy: Um, okay. They are so this is for our next episode, everyone. Uh, you've listened to these before, so you know what this is. Um, the original theatrical director of this stage musical, we're doing a stage musical, guys, would go on to direct not only its movie adaptation, but also such great hits as Paul Blart Molkop 1 and of course the incomparable Paul Blart Molkop 2.

[1:29:54] Jimmy: It's amazing that they named the first one one before the second one exists.

[1:29:58] Tommy: Isn't that incredible? Um, watch. If you want to get in touch with us, our show, Twitter and Instagram is at Jim and Tomic or drop us an email at our website, jimandtomic.com.

[1:30:09] Jimmy: Yes, indeed, where you will find links to our merch store, you'll find links to our Patreon, um, if you want to financially support us.

[1:30:18] Tommy: Um, and also we've got a Discord now as well. We know there are people out there who are frantically trying to get on.

[1:30:25] Jimmy: There's reasons why we have to limit it, guys.

[1:30:27] Tommy: Um, I'm sorry, that's just how it is, but we will always put up links, never fear. But we have a lot of fun over there, so do try and get in while you can.

[1:30:37] Jimmy: It's true. Also on our Patreon, you can find our, uh, video pre-show podcast, last call.

[1:30:42] Tommy: Uh, this week we babbled mostly about video games and WandaVision.

[1:30:47] Jimmy: Yes, we talk Marvel, ladies and gentlemen.

[1:30:51] Tommy: Um, but yes, most of all, it really just helps us out when you tell all of your friends about our show. Word of mouth is our hero.

[1:30:59] Jimmy: Um, yeah. But until next time, Tommy.

[1:31:01] Tommy: Cheers.

[1:31:04] Jimmy: Cheers.

[1:31:20] Tommy: Eight, six, seven, five, be all nine.