"The Show Must Go On"

Season 3 episode 2 (episode 54 overall) 

Ooooh no it mustn't!

Original broadcast date: 17th December 1990

Writer: Brian Trueman
Additional voices: Actors/Dmitri/
                              3rd Crow: Brian Trueman

                              Actor/Ruffles/Sviatoslav:
                              Jimmy Hibbert

                              Burt/4th Crow: David Jason

Travel location: Timbuktu
Castle transport visual used.

Joke credit: Additional Dialogue - William Shakespeare.

Applaud, you idiots!

This one is just brilliant. Brian Trueman may not have written quite as many episodes for Duckula as he was doing for almost every other C-H show at the time, but when he's there, he's on fire! He seems to work well with the Crow brothers too (though Jimmy Hibbert did exceptionally well in 'Mobile Home') so it's no surprise they are the most frequent of the recurring cast, hailing back from the first episode, which Trueman also penned. I get the impression Brian was something of a Shakespeare buff, not only because of the plot but for the simple fact that he voices both of the offscreen actors in the opening scene performing 'Hamlet.' This instalment is backed up by some very lively Spanish animation too, so that always helps.

After getting ejected near the end of the performance (Nanny wanted to give the chaps with swords a good telling-off) Duckula gets the idea to stage his own play. Not being quite in the same league as Shakespeare, he settles on the very kiddie-sounding 'Jack and the Magic Walnut' which I'm almost certain is a Trueman invention if not a very obscure fairy tale. Even though Igor has no interest in such a play (he'd prefer to put on a production of 'The Vampire Follies') it's fun to see that he's a little put out because he doesn't want to play the evil giant. "He loses" is his main complaint. Duckula, of course, essays the main role for himself and Nanny is set to play Bluebell the Fairy Godmother. This poses the problem of who will play all the additional parts (hey, just do what all cartoons do and double up the actors!) so this is where the Crow Brothers come in, whether they like it or not. Once again they're trying to break into the castle to pinch things, but end up getting involved as extras on the play, to cover their tracks.

What's fun to observe is the way David Jason's acting as Duckula gets more and more hammy as the episode progresses; Duckula is really overdoing his role as director which really begins to grate on Igor more than usual and even on Nanny. The Crows can't grumble too much, because they need to keep up their deception in order to be allowed on the premises. The Count even assigns random theatrical job titles to whoever is at hand too, in an attempt to sound professional, but it just comes across as pompous and pointless.

Duckula: Prrrroperty master?
Igor: It would be quicker to call for Nanny sir.
Duckula: NANNY! 

Jimmy Hibbert's voice-work as Ruffles is similarly entertaining as the character attempts to sound like a posh h'actor to fool the Count, but he occasionally slips up with an out-of-place "Knock it off....darlings" to his colleagues. Ruffles has done this a couple of other times in prior episodes which demonstrates Hibbert's vocal range in that he makes him sound like Ruffles doing an impression rather than simply a sounding like a separate character. 

Once the Crows are inside the castle (there's a funny visual joke whereby Burt thinks they're still outside due to the stage scenery - you really have to see this one) they impress Duckula enough to get cast as wood elves (maybe), mushrooms (possibly) and fairies (NO WAY) in the play. They also have to play goblins at once point only to get crushed by a stage drawbridge. I like how the mushroom song and the goblin song sound identical other than the lyrics. No expense spared!

Of course the bruvvahs are only interested in divesting the castle of any and all valuables, while Duckula is only concerned with the mantra on the episode title - his show must go on! What occurs is a series of cumulative joke scenes which result in the brothers getting a lot of comedic abuse and amusing injuries while Duckula gets into fuller and fuller snappy director mode. Igor and Nanny's reactions from the sidelines are the capper to all this. Igor migrates slowly from 'not really interested' to 'I'm really ready to snap here' with the feudal system being his only restraint from his storming off the set. Nanny also gets more and more ticked off, though its subtler. You can tell by the way she says 'There.' when pointing at the 'cupboard' prop, for example.

Among the injuries the Crows sustain:

• Falling off stage in mushroom costumes that look like sacks (still roped together!)
• Flattened by a stage drawbridge while crudely dressed as goblins.
• Burt deciding to go and stall for time by leaving the totem pole of Crow brothers - despite being at the bottom and still being roped together.
• Getting brutally crushed by a grand piano after Nanny removes the bracing nut from the winch they're lowering it down on.

The play rehearsal itself of course is a complete farce in all areas. Igor's evil giant costume consists of enormous fake feet on stilts and it requires him and all four Crow brothers to get Nanny airborne as the fairy via a winch. By this stage Ruffles can't even be bothered with his posh actor's talk. Although Duckula is impressed with Nanny's acting, he's less than impressed with Igor.

Duckula: This is the theATre! People come on when they're dying, people go on when they're actually dead!
Igor: Quite!

When Igor leaves said winch to give his performance (even he gets a great piece of hammy acting in), that's enough for the Crows to fail. Nanny comes crashing down onto the stage, sending the Crows skyward through the roof and herself, Igor and Duckula downwards to the dungeons. You have to feel for all three of them. Battered and bruised, Duckula still insists that the show must go on so he says his next line while standing in the 'cupboard.' Turns out it's not a cupboard at all but the magic coffin which responds to his command and transports the castle off to Timbuktu. On the newly vacated hill, in a bandaged heap, the brothers bemoan the fact that the castle has gone off again and they can't nick any stuff. You have to feel for them too. Once again, we feel sympathy for both the 'goodies' and the 'baddies.' One of the things I like best about this show is that the line between the two is never clear cut. In the traditional sense, there are no real heroes and villains, just victims. Poor, unfortunate, battered victims of ill luck and bad judgement. Were this an American cartoon I imagine that, while the play would still be a disaster it would probably have ended with the 'it's so rubbish it's hilarious and the theatre audience loves this new 'comedy' play' kind of an ending.

Curtain call folks! Seek out and enjoy the show. Just a really funny episode. Very cynical, very slapstick and with a load of great verbal jokes and acting - 'Jack and the Magic Walnut' nonewithstanding, of course!

Music
"Sir Richard's Pleasure (A)" (Richard Myhill - track 5) Opening scene.
 "Sir Richard's Pleasure (C)" (Richard Myhill - track 7) Opening scene, trio arguing.
"Valse Daft" (Track 1) Nanny talking to the "Wood Elves."
"Vamp Til Ready" (Wally Asp - track 88) Dmitri and Sviatoslav.

"Sir Toby Belch" (Eric Spear 2:35) - Painting the set/ending.

"Horse Feathers" (Philip Green) - Crow Brothers' 'audition.' 
This is the posh jolly music that ends "Whodunnit?" and the Victor & Hugo episode "Do-In-Yourself." It ends this episode also. Crops up in "Amnesiac Duck." 

"Shadowed" (Peter Francklyn/Robert Gill) is heard when Nanny removes the wall nut. The clunky, off-key piano music I suspect was composed specifically for this episode. It plays 'The Song of the Volga Boatmen' when Igor and the Crow Brothers try to lift Nanny up on the rope.

Pans and Backgrounds

Reasonably colourful for a Duckula episode, mainly due to the prop scenery. There's attention to detail: all the candle flames are animated and not outlined. With the Crow Brothers involved, there are naturally quite a few up-and-down pans. The right hand one here looks especially weird when pieced together! It's drawn this way to give the impression of three dimensions when the camera scrolls upwards from the thieves to the piano high above them.

Spot the bedside lamp used as lighting.

Trivia

• Episode starts with general commotion, ends on the Crows' crying. Opens and closes in Transylvania.
• Another appearance of the city of Cluj. At the Opera House no less. Opens the episode.
• It's tricky to hear, but the Hamlet scene being performed comes near the end of the play.
  KING CLAUDIUS
      Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
      Here's to thy health.
      Give him the cup.
  
  HAMLET
      I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
  
• The statue in the town square references Hamlet. When Duckula summarises the gruesome plot of Hamlet, Igor declares it "most enjoyable!" Duckula (or his prior incarnation) did a performance of Hamlet in his first appearance - the Danger Mouse episode 'The 4 Tasks of Danger Mouse.' (see above) The statue also appears to be splattered with bird faeces.
• 5th appearance of the Crow Brothers.
• Ruffles uses binocolars again.
• Burt has a habit of often repeating what Ruffles says when engaged in plotting. Still present and correct here! 
• Burt refers to Rose Fyleman's 'There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden' which was also spoofed as an episode title.
• Fairy Bluebell is also mentioned in the Alias the Jester episode "The Walking Island."
• Igor would rather they staged "The Vampire Follies." This is probably a reference to "The Zeigfield Follies."
• Dmitri and Sviatoslav make three appearances! A new record. Dmitri apparently has an uncle who shares his name with Igor.
• The mushroom song and the goblin song are the same tune.
  We're little bouncing mushrooms, we bounce around all day!
  And then we bounce to fairy land and ask them out to play!/
  We're naughty naughty goblins, we're naughty all day long!
• Duckula says the play is a "serious, intellectual moving drama of the human condition." Nanny later says she's 'flying' "just like a bird" to which Duckula replies that she is one. I guess they're one and the same on this show. After injury, Ruffles says he's got a lump on his head "the size of a duck egg." Igor's false feet look distinctly humanoid.
• Just who is playing the music for the play? The bats? Probably a pre-recording or a 4th wall joke as Duckula interacts with it at one point.
• The littlest Crow brother's voice in never consistent. He doesn't say much, but his actor seems to change in every episode! Oddly, Jack never gets a chance, despite there being 4 of the characters and 4 of the regular actors. 
• Burt sings "Hooray and down she comes" which may be an inversion of "Hooray and up she rises."
• Does Nanny unwittingly drop the same (Louis the 14th grand) piano on the Crows as she did on Duckula and Goosewing in "A Family Reunion"? It gets totally wrecked this time. This is a rare episode in that Nanny does not break or destroy anything other than removing the nut, which would not have harmed anyone if the Crows hadn't been using it illegally anyway. She removes the nut to use it for a magic walnut. Nut on a wall. Wall-nut. Geddit?! That's some Dmitri and Sviatoslav level humour there. Duckula does make a crack about how Nanny habitually breaks walls though. She does break the stage floor too, but that wasn't really her fault. 
• Rare instance of costume changes for the characters and a rarer instance of Duckula wearing clothes on his lower half!
• Igor plays the giant. Jack May also played the giant in "Duck and the Brocolli Stalk."
• Once more the Crows get progressively more and more covered in bandages as they did in their inaugural episode. The thump, thump, thump...thump gag is not done here though, the thumps are thick and fast.
• Ruffles refers to Igor as Mister Igor, just like Nanny does. 
• The long pan used when the characters are flying through the floors of the castle has been used in "Astro Duck", "Unreal Estate" and "One Stormy Night." Some of the rooms have been re-arranged though.
• Another appearance of the magic coffin. We also get a brief chance to see what the cellar looks like without the coffin there.
• The castle decides to travel to Timbuktu when Duckula says his line of the play:
  "The giant's here what shall I do?
  I wish I was in Timbuktu."
• Appropriately enough this episode aired near Christmas. Christmas pantomimes are very much a thing in Britain. It also aired the week before "A Chirstmas Quacker" which also featured the Crow Brothers.
• If you need the joke credit explaining, there's no hope for you. It's technically true as well, given the opening scene.
  

Goofs and Nitpicks 

• The stage scenery changes from castle to forest when Duckula asks Nanny for the props. It should stay as one or the other all the way through.