I’ve hipped you to Acorn TV before. It’s the online mini-network broadcasting famous British series such as Upstairs Downstairs, Midsomer Murders and others distributed on DVD by Acorn Media, for $25 a year. They put up one complete season of each of several series on the Acorn TV site at a time, then rotate them out every six weeks or so.
This Monday, Nov. 14, the first season of Slings & Arrows joins the roster. The show, about the hauntings and happenings at a Canadian summer Shakespeare festival theater, was created by and co-stars Mark McKinney. He’s the Kids in the Hall member who did the most live stage work following that show’s demise, including playing Millet in the New York production of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Fuddy Meers and co-writing the internationally touring Scooby-Doo Live.
Slings & Arrows is the greatest TV dramedy about running a Shakespeare theater since… Well, even if somebody else had ever done something remotely similar, Slings & Arrows would be better. It gets the pretensions and preoccupations dead right, but also shows theater as something worth doing and fighting for.
All together now:
Call the understudy
I can’t go on tonight
I’m drinking with my buddy
I’m getting good and tight
Before they raise the curtain I’ll be higher than a kite
So call the understudy
I can’t go on tonight
Tell the cast and crew to break a leg
Roll me out another bloody keg
I need to ease the pain that life can bring
And liquor is what will hit the spot
The play is not the thing
So call the understudy
I think it’s only right
My diction will be muddy
I’ll never find my light
Before the intermission I’ll be pissing on a sprite
So call the understudy
I can’t go on (“He can’t go on!”)
I won’t go on (“He shan’t go on!”)
I can’t go on tonight (“Damn right!”)