Viewing page 15 of 59

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[advertisement]]
MCA CLASSICS GOES TO THE THEATER
[[image -  record album cover: Carousel]]
MCA-6209
Rodgers & Hammerstein's CAROUSEL. Barbara Cook, Samuel Ramey, Sarah Brightman, David Rendall, Maureen Forrester. Royal Philharmonic/Conductor: Paul Gemignani.

[[image - record album cover: Me and My Girl]]
MCA-6196
Broadway's Current Mega-hit ME AND MY GIRL.

[[image - record album cover: A Broadway Extravaganza]]
MCA-6219
A BROADWAY EXTRAVAGANZA. Symphonic Recollections: Phantom of the Opera  Cats  Starlight Express  Sophisticated Ladies  House of Flowers  Strike Up The Band  St. Louis Woman  Song and Dance  Oh Kay!  The Mikado  H.M.S. Pinafore  Goldwyn Follies  Anyone Can Whistle  The New Moon  Jamaica.

[[image - record album cover: A Digital Trip Down Broadway]]
MCA-6220
A DIGITAL TRIP DOWN BROADWAY. Symphonic Recollections: West Side Story  Me & My Girl  Les Miserables  Carousel  Oklahoma  Kiss Me, Kate  By Jupiter  Babes in Arms  Garrick Gaieties 1925  Jumbo  The Girlfriend  Out Of This World  Wake Up and Dream  Mexican Hayride  Anything Goes  Born To Dance  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes  Gypsy  Do Re Mi  Funny Girl  Bells Are Ringing.

Available on compact disc, MCA HiQ cassettes and records. For mail order information contact: Pack Central Inc., 6745 Denny Ave., No. Hollywood, CA 91606.
[[/advertisement]]

GIRL'S NEW GUY
continued

twice as much fun as hearing it."

Laughter has been ringing in Dale's ears for most of his career. Debuting at 16 at a small theatre in Kittering in Northamptonshire, he literally arrived with a laugh hurled through the air by four stagehands, arriving stage centre with a loud kaboom. "They used to announce that I was in the wings but that I was a little too nervous as this was my first appearance professionally, then they threw me onstage. I used to use that every night for three or four years."

This entrance foreshadowed the career that was to come. "It has been a physical career, no doubt about it. That's probably because I studied ballet, tap, ballroom dancing, eccentric comedy dancing, sometimes nine to ten lessons a week, six days a week for six years. You've got to learn it. There is no secret. It's just a matter of having spent years doing it in front of a crowd. I suppose I found it easier in the beginning to get a laugh with body contortions  and body language as opposed to just the spoke word. Many of the parts I've played over the years, like Shakespearean comedian roles, began physically with the visual character that you can see out there on stage. That's the way I always start. I like to put the shoes on him and find the walk for him before I explore what's inside."

Which, one surmises, is what comes of starting out as a tumbler. "When you're a tumbler, the first thing you learn is that your body is a very precious thing to look after, and you're an idiot if you throw it around just to make people laugh. In the early days I used to injure myself a lot." He rolls up his sleeve to reveal a smashed elbow, the result of many a bad fall. "Lupino Lane used to come off the stage and say, 'Look at the laugh I got tonight,' and show a big bruise. He used to call 'em laughs, his bruises."

A self-confessed grandfather and father of four, Dale carries on accordingly, in the rough-and-tumble way he has always played it. In addition to risking life and 

[[end page]]
[[start page]]

limb, he also laid his reputation on the line when he took on Me and My Girl, for it meant following not only his idol, Lupino Lane, but also Robert Lindsay, who collected a Tony for the part two weeks before Dale took it over. Rialto skeptics predicted a dip at the box office; instead, it soared.

"The only problem about following somebody into a role is that people compare performances. I think that's wrong. You don't compare people's different Hamlets. Hamlet has been done hundreds of times, and there's no reason why Bill Snibson shouldn't be played many, many different ways. Tim Curry's bringing the house down in the road company with his interpretation, which I've seen, which is completely different from mine. Bob did it his way, I'm doing it my way, Tim Curry's doing it his way, and whoever does it in the future will do it his way. If people expect me to be the same as Bob Lindsay, what do they want? An impressionist? My style of generating laughter is different than Bob's but just as acceptable, judging from the reaction of the audience. That's the measuring stick of it all - the audience's reaction." More often than not, the rowdy response greeting

[[advertisement]]
Toshiba's new VCR makes this sound like disc.

[[image: photo of VHS cassette tape and photo of compact disc]]

It used to be unheard of. A VCR with CD-quality sound. But Toshiba just introduced the DX-900, the first digital VCR with a PCM audio system.

Use it as an audio recorder, and its dynamic range and frequency response rival those of a CD. So you hear pure, distortion-free sound.

Use it as a VCR, and you can display four pictures at once, freeze broadcast TV and program with a fiber optic pen right on your TV screen.

The DX-900. If you want a VCR that sounds like disc, this is the one.

[[image - photo of Toshiba VCR]]
In Touch with Tomorrow
TOSHIBA
Toshiba America, Inc., 82 Totowa Road, Wayne, NJ 07470
[[/advertisement]]