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<blockquote data-quote="Mel O&amp;#039;Drama" data-source="post: 389571" data-attributes="member: 23">And for posterity I&#039;ll mention that The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf drew to a close last night. The episodes were more of the same, but I did think Warren seemed to get a bit bolder in some of the latter episodes, telling audience members (as Alf) to shut up if he was interrupted and getting a bit close to the knuckle in his personal insults of audience members which encompassed Alf&#039;s favourite discriminatory areas including race, size, sexuality and gender, as well as questionable clothing taste and dodgy hairdos (&quot;Did you get that wig on the NHS?&quot; he asked one woman, before replying that he knew it wasn&#039;t a wig really &quot;cos you&#039;d have got a much better one than that&quot;). A lot of the more bawdy comments came when Alf was supposed to have had a few. It&#039;s incredible what the audience will forgive under those circumstances. And while he never went as far here as he did in the 1980 version, I&#039;d say Alf was edgier here than he was in the last few years of In Sickness &amp; In Health. Of course, the audience couldn&#039;t hide their affection for the character. I&#039;m still unclear about audience selection. They were all firing away their questions and seemed very much to be enjoying the spotlight. I wonder how much they were prepped. Were they given the questions in advance or under their seat or something? Or was it genuinely spontaneous? I did spot a glimpse of an autocue at one point, though (assuming there was just the one) Warren didn&#039;t seem to glance at it at all. Just the fact that I don&#039;t know how it was done fills me with admiration for Warren Mitchell. If he can follow a script and make it seem this off the cuff and fresh then that&#039;s quite a feat. I was left with the feeling that a great deal of it was ad libbed, and came away feeling I&#039;d watched a proper stand-up show. One element I must mention is the songs. Many of them were traditional East End knees-up standards, but there were a couple of poignant ballads thrown in and he interpreted them so well as an actor that I found myself feeling quite moved by some of the lyrics. He ended on one of these, but still managed to leave them laughing and left that stage on his own terms. I was ready to wrap up the Garnett Saga, but still felt a little sad to think that was probably the last we saw of Alf.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mel O'Drama, post: 389571, member: 23"] And for posterity I'll mention that[B] [I]The Thoughts Of Chairman Alf[/I] [/B]drew to a close last night. The episodes were more of the same, but I did think Warren seemed to get a bit bolder in some of the latter episodes, telling audience members (as Alf) to shut up if he was interrupted and getting a bit close to the knuckle in his personal insults of audience members which encompassed Alf's favourite discriminatory areas including race, size, sexuality and gender, as well as questionable clothing taste and dodgy hairdos ("Did you get that wig on the NHS?" he asked one woman, before replying that he knew it wasn't a wig really "cos you'd have got a much better one than that"). A lot of the more bawdy comments came when Alf was supposed to have had a few. It's incredible what the audience will forgive under those circumstances. And while he never went as far here as he did in the 1980 version, I'd say Alf was edgier here than he was in the last few years of [I]In Sickness & In Health. [/I] Of course, the audience couldn't hide their affection for the character. I'm still unclear about audience selection. They were all firing away their questions and seemed very much to be enjoying the spotlight. I wonder how much they were prepped. Were they given the questions in advance or under their seat or something? Or was it genuinely spontaneous? I did spot a glimpse of an autocue at one point, though (assuming there was just the one) Warren didn't seem to glance at it at all. Just the fact that I don't know how it was done fills me with admiration for Warren Mitchell. If he can follow a script and make it seem this off the cuff and fresh then that's quite a feat. I was left with the feeling that a great deal of it was ad libbed, and came away feeling I'd watched a proper stand-up show. One element I must mention is the songs. Many of them were traditional East End knees-up standards, but there were a couple of poignant ballads thrown in and he interpreted them so well as an actor that I found myself feeling quite moved by some of the lyrics. He ended on one of these, but still managed to leave them laughing and left that stage on his own terms. I was ready to wrap up the Garnett Saga, but still felt a little sad to think that was probably the last we saw of Alf. [/QUOTE]

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