Shouting in the Evenings

The mask of comedy is one of the traditional symbols of the theatre, and the theatrical world has always offered a wide range of wry and witty quotations.

Patrick Troughton, the second Dr Who, described acting as "Shouting in the evenings." John Wayne, on the other hand, advised aspiring actors, "Talk low, talk slow, and don't say much." Katharine Hepburn's view of her chosen profession was the opposite of star-struck: "Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four."

Roger Moore has commented, "I used to work for a living, then I became an actor." For some practitioners, however, considerable effort is involved. It cannot have been easy to be the young actor supposedly advised by J. M. Barrie, "Try and look as if you had a younger brother in Shropshire."

There are also, of course, other pressures. In 1927, surveying the fashionable scene, the famous actress Mrs Patrick Campbell summarized, "I'm out of a job. London wants flappers, and I can't flap." Nearly 200 years earlier, Samuel Johnson, speaking to his friend David Garrick, was forced to institute a self-denying ordinance: "I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities."

One of the joys of leafing through a collection of humorous quotations is to hear the voice of strong characters contradicting or supporting one another across time and space. To find these and more (and perhaps to spice up a speech of your own), turn to the expert guidance of Ned Sherrin in the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations.

Printer friendly version