I don't think I've seen this topic elsewhere, so:

What are the worst lines in a show? What made you cringe when you said, or sang them?

/alan

This one from Call Me Madam always made me laugh:

Kenneth: Now see here, I'm not your slave...oh darling, yes I am (kisses her)

Grab the sick-bag, someone!

/alan

OK. I'll start. On Saturday I had the last night of The Sound of Music. The line I fet really awkward with was;

"Maria. Wear that dress you wore th other night when we were all singing. It was lovely, soft and white"

I felt such a twit saying that line. It should be a toilet roll commercial - "It's lovely, soft and white" !

My all time favourite line is in "Gethsemane" in JCS. The line is, "God, thy will is hard", but you have to be very carefull to separate the words "will" and "is" !

Jon

Like the last one Jonboy! It's like the song in Best Little Whorehouse - "Texas has a whorehouse in it, Lord have mercy on our souls". For some reason, everyone used to run the last two words together....

Line that always made me want to blush was in Dick Barton Special Agent. The only way that my character (the evil Marta Heartburn) can find out who the real Dick Barton is from a line up of imposters is by kissing them all. Colonel Gardener (a good guy) is assisting in this. Marta turns to the Colonel and says "How many Dicks have I kissed now Colonel?"

*blush*

Hee hee....

How about that famous song from My Fair Lady - most people put the comma in the wrong place when they're singing.

It should be "on the street where you live"
But take a breath in the wrong place, you get "on the street, where you live" - a totally different meaning!

/atp

Alice, the Deputy Sports Captain in Daisy Pulls It Off looks out across the hockey pitch (the audience's heads) and says........."By George, look at that gel there - she can certainly pass balls"!

How I kept a straight face with them all laughing night after night I'll never know!

I'm having a nightmare with Lank in "Crazy For You"....

He's got to say...

"In 2000 years there's only been one resurrection"....

I panic and I break out in a cold sweat everytime I got to say it..

God help me if I get that wrong...

... every line I had to say in "The Ghost Train"...... especially at the end where I had to change from being a fey english girl into a gum chewing, gun toting, american moll! That play should be burned...

Our Rosie has some excellent lines in Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens this year. Nothing I can print here, but I'm sure she'll manage without blushing or laughing.

Over to you, Rosie....

Blimey I've been a bit remiss at checking the topics - must be all this wedding organising.

Hmmm, let me see... I wouldn't say that any of my lines are bad. In fact, I LOVE them.

How about my entrance as Shirley Tristar...? "Give me a Cosmic Screw, and I want it YESTERDAY!"...?

That gives you a flavour of the nature of my lines.

Or how about "It was a PVC bonanza..." ...? That's another choice line (lyric actually). You get the drift.

It's a complete gift of a part!!!!

I thinks lines that are corny jokes are sometimes the worst, although i feel that every play has always got a line that is the best line in a play - now that can be another topic for discussion

In a romantic love scene.....


Her: What star sign are you?

Him: Virgo.

Her: Oh good, because I was afraid you might be Pisces and...well...I'm allergic to seafood.



Yuk!!

in a production called diva las vegas i have to say: "one day i will talk and hollywood will listen" then i have to sing that song

Also in a romantic love scene (but in a very funny comedy):

Her: The sash cords have gone again in the kitchen.

Him: I'll fix them, I'll fix them.

It took us six weeks of rehearsals before we could gaze into each other's eyes and say that without corpsing!

I was directing "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and asked my young (18 year old) lead to rush onto stage surrounded by secretaries, and giving them jobs to do, don't stop talking, keep us interested whilst we take a truck off stage left.

Lights up, full house, rushes on, and at very fast speed says....."I want all the hedgehogs in the area arrested. Someone's been bursting balloons around here and I want it stopped, stopped, stopped! Now go - do this thing - and God will grant you a place in Heaven. If not, it's Hedgehog Hell for all of us".

How the girls all seriously nodded, wrote it on their notepads and looked lovingly at him without so much as a smile was even more impressive. Actors, the lot of them!

Corny jokes. Hmm.

How about a line I had in Derek Benfield's (bless him) "Beyond a Joke". My daughter says "I'm going to the ...(friends).. they've got a new horse".

My hilarious reply - " Oh, really, I didn't know they'd eaten the last one". (What??)

Director wouldn't let me cut it.

Corny line that appears in our panto EVERY SINGLE YEAR (by tradition the audience expect it!):


"I can see for miles - I can see the Hogs Back" (local hill)

"The Hogs Back? I didn't know he'd been away"



Everyone draws lots to see who gets the short straw each year.....

In 'La Cage Aux Folles' I still have no idea how as Phaedra, responding to Derma's line of "Phaedra, isnt it strange how you can work with someone for years and never really know them" I was supposed to deliver the line

"Derma, Derma, Derma! If beauty is only skin deep, then why are people?"

I tried emphasising the "why", the "are" and the "people", as I have no idea about this line, so I ended up making it out as though Phaedra, being a bit of an airhead tried to come out with something profound,

"If beauty is only skin deep... then...uh... why...ARE...........people?" with a confused/blank look as I think whether that made sense, but I then just sort of snap out of it, see someone off stage and wave to them before trotting off stage to meet them, as Derma rotates her finger against her forehead to denote that Phaedra is a bit bonkers.

Anyone any ideas as to how it's SUPPOSED to be delivered?

Same show also has the song lyric "it's hot and hectic, effervescent and eclectic" sung very fast whilst dancing... gah!

Also in Oliver, it's tricky not to feel pervy when as Mr Bumble, replying to Widow Corney, "Hard hearted Mrs Corney? ...haaard?"

Enduring the guffaws of the crew every night when having to say "I want to have fun while I'm young, after all I am only 17" when playing Maisie in The Boyfriend at a somwehat more advanced age (!)

or

singing the line "lusty and clear from the goodherd's throat heard" in this year's panto - came out as complete gibberish on the third night much to the delight of the juveniles onstage with me

www.thewranglers.co.uk

In Antigony, I say (as Haimon) "I admit, men should be right by instinct, but since we are all too likely to go astray the reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach." It just makes my skin crawl at how sexist it is! I don't want to be booed by the feminists in the audience!

Don't know the play, so I may be wrong, but looking at it out of context, I don't think it is intended to be sexist. By men, they mean mankind - all of us, not specifically males. It's just the way they would have exprressed it. If you slide the emphasis of he line on to should rather than men, I think that makes it read more that way too.

My yuk one is in Honk, where the mother swan says to the mother Duck "Cry my dear, cry, for the warmth of a mother's tears can melt the coldest frost". Blurp. We considered sending it up and having the rest of the swans upchucking behind her, but in the end we played it straight and the girl got away with it.

This is a fun topic!

I was in Can't Pay, Won't Pay and had the line "it's like the storming of the bastille or the winter palace in Leningrad." One night the audience was treated to "it's like the storming of the Leningrad!"

My other favourite - I was in a creaky 1940's play Treasure Hunt and near the end my poor other half had to say "But I do believe it's in her muff!" It was not a joke, not tongue in cheek and the Director was adamant that the audience were not that smutty and wouldn't find it funny. Needless to say, it got a dirty snigger at every performance!

I did a JB Priestley play alongside my grandfather, in which he was required to say "It's very rum, but ..." coincidentally at the same time as pouring drinks. This was such a daft line the director allowed him to say "it's very strange" instead.

I also played Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream and, being only twelve years old at the time, I had a very hard time of it not to laugh when Lysander is insulting her "you minimus of hindering knot - grass made, you bead, you acorn ..." One night I did actually burst out laughing on stage, but I got away with it by pretending to be sobbing.

My current line-which-always-goes-amusingly-wrong is in Calamity Jane, I'm playing Katie, and I have to say "Calamity's fine on top of a stagecoach or behind an oxteam" but it tends to come out as "Calamity's fine behind a stagecoach or on top of an oxteam" which gives the line a slightly different meaning...

One of my all-time favourites (though not really cringeworthy, just a terrible pun!) is from Anything Goes which I performed in recently...


Evangeline Harcourt has lost her dog and exclaims to the Captain of the cruise ship:


'I can't find my little Cheeky!'


to which the Captain replies (with a wink to the audience)...


'Why, it's right beside your little nosey'...


before grinning inanely and walking off looking very pleased with himself!



Classic stuff!

Hi everyone, I'm new here!
Just did play last weekend 'With Vacant Possession'
Worst line was
Robin 'You know you've got a wonderful way with a sausage'
To which my character Jennifer had to reply 'I've had plenty of practice!'
Nt sure how we managed to keep our faces straight on the night.




Hi Mike, I remember that line.....was in Anything Goes 10 years ago , I was one of the Angels! Chastity I think. Have deflected to straight drama now....but miss the dancing.

Tony: 'and there's nothing for me but maria, every sight that i see is maria.......' (Nice lyrics)

Maria: TONY TONY! (Awful!!)

Nigel Forde wrote "The Passion" for a community drama for our town. It has to be the worst play written. Considering how good he can be, I'm sure he wrote this one for a bet. Every other line made one wince. Lines such as one wise man saying (on sight of the star) "The miles I grew up with are turning into inches", which is actually one of the better lines in it.
Professional actors were drafted in for the bigger parts, and most of them agreed when one said he would sue anyone who put this play on his CV. A sort of bunker mentality grew up....

The best line in a play was unintentional. We did the Pilgrim's Progress. A young and inexperienced actor played Faithful. He was chased by Rotten Heart and ran off stage. Immediately, he returned, when he was supposed to look out of breath, while Lady Soul Trapper came on, and asked him "Are you all right?" Nothing wrong with that. Except, on the matinee our stage manager was taken ill and someone else stepped in. They forgot to call Soul Trapper. Faithful ran on, stopped to rest and - nothing. An experienced actor would have ad libbed. The prompt whispered "Ad lib" The poor guy did not know what to do. The audience began to get restless. Someone called for a prompt. Couldn't prompt. No line. A minute went by. (Felt like an hour.) Then Soul Trapper came rushing on stage, ran up to him and said "Are you all right?" Brought the house down.

[quote name='Hilary Mack' date='Jul 8 2006, 10:27 PM' post='92789']
Nigel Forde wrote "The Passion" for a community drama for our town. It has to be the worst play written. Considering how good he can be, I'm sure he wrote this one for a bet. Every other line made one wince. Lines such as one wise man saying (on sight of the star) "The miles I grew up with are turning into inches", which is actually one of the better lines in it.

no way is that the worst line, hils. there were many many more, including mine (half of which got cut): 'the wood around the door was wet with rain; a bee landed on the orange blossom; the air shimmered, and there he stood....an angel' (to be delivered wistfully out to the audience, with gareth trying not to laugh to the left of me).

other funny lines fail me. although jesus screaming 'THIS IS NOT A TEMPLE' every time we did the temple scene made me laugh.

that one at the beginning 'strung each drop to drop to drop' was weird. that's all i can think of for now.

in caryl churchill's top girls, some of my first lines (while walking through an audience including my teachers and parents, and young kids) were:

'you f**ing rotten little c**t, you can stay there and die! i'll lock the back door!'

In Dracula last year, we were building up to a peak at the end. Mina, under Drac's spell, had rushed to Drac's castle and Jonathan and Van Helsing were approaching the castle to rescue her. Jonathan's line in the script is "she must have driven like a bat out of hell to get here that fast". Cue destruction of atmosphere as Meat Loaf fans in the audience titter...

We managed to get "Weigh Ancor" into three pantomimes on a trot.

If said correctly, it did not quite sound like that.

Jim

Not really a bad line of itself this, but ...We just finished the play "Sammy". Mark has been staying out and telling his wife Jenny that he's working late. She says their bank balance must be healthy and he is supposed to reply "The tax you pay on overtime is criminal." Every single time, the actor said "the overtime you pay on tax is criminal". Which would have worked if he had a career in the Inland Revenue.....

Same play. Huge emotional scene between Phil and Christine. She is denying being unfaithful, only having flirted with Mark. Phil says "At what point do you become unfaithful, Christine? Not until you drop your knickers? or is it that first secret kiss? Or is it when you plan it?" It didn't matter how much we rehearsed, every time he said "drop your knickers" the actress went off into fits of giggles. The lengths we had to go to get her to keep a straight face. And nobody else could see what was so funny about it, which made her worse.