Socio-Comedy Show returns to San Miguel
By Susan Page, Dec 22, 2006

Daniel Packard’s Live Group Sex Therapy Show Thursday–Saturday, January 4–6, 8pm El Viejo Topo Café and Theater Plaza Pueblito Shopping Center, Stirling Dickinson, 150 pesos Reservations: 154-8701, Payment at the door

What would you like to change about your relationship? What bothers you most about the opposite sex? How do you get the spark back? Where are all the good men hiding? 

Daniel Packard’s Live Group Sex Therapy Show discusses all these questions with surprising twists and keeps you laughing the entire time. “It’s Dr. Phil meets Robin Williams,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Daniel had all San Miguel buzzing (and laughing) when he was here in July, and people who missed the show definitely regretted it! He is returning for three performances on January 4, 5 and 6 at 8pm.

The evening will also introduce San Miguel to a wonderful new performance venue. Called El Viejo Topo, the new theater and cafe is located on Stirling Dickinson in the Plaza Pueblito shopping center, with lots of free parking. El Viejo Topo serves “the best coffee in San Miguel,” according to numerous avid customers. Owner Isaac Toporec has created a cozy, warm, inviting space for coffee, snacks and entertainment.

Daniel Packard is hilarious! But what makes him unique is that he combines his lightning-fast wit with exceptional interpersonal skills. He involves his audiences. What he’d really like to do is reunite the sexes under a blanket of deep mutual understanding. You can feel his passion for such compassion—and you’ll be splitting your side with laughter along the way.

According to a CBS reviewer, “By getting the whole room involved, he takes the crowd on an absolutely hilarious and revealing emotional journey that is easily the most entertaining, fun and captivating piece of theater I’ve seen in a long time. Packard has redefined what a comedian can accomplish on stage.”

Make your reservation early for what is not only a comedy show but a provocative, engaging, never-to-be-forgotten comedy “experience.” To see more, visit Packard’s website at www.danielpackard.com 

Please make a reservation ahead of time, but payment will be at the door. For reservations, call 154-8701 or 044-415-153-5277 or email topo@cybermatsa.com.mx 

Christmas with Coward
By Meredith Beaumont

The Literary Cabaret presents A Talent to Amuse Wednesday–Friday, December 27–29, 8pm Saturday, December 30, 7pm La Cava de la Princesa, Recreo 3, 50 pesos

As The Literary Cabaret embarks on its 13th season here in San Miguel, the question is always, What next? What’s new? It has been seven years since the irreverent threesome—Rick Davey, Marilyn Bullivant and Reesha Browning—produced their popular “Mad About the Boy,” an all-Noël Coward program. Now, they’re back with a sequel: “A Talent to Amuse.”

Recent research in England, while they were on their annual sojourn there this September, turned up a ream of new material, including little-known alternative verses to old favorites—it’s Coward at his even naughtier!

The Literary Cabaret performers, who all hail from the British Isles, specialize in bringing English literature, lesser-known poetry and obscure songs and ditties to the stage in an atmosphere of fun and frivolity.

Noël Coward’s repertoire embodies what they love, and Coward did it all—actor, singer, playwright, composer, poet and songwriter. With his sophisticated manner and razor-sharp wit, he produced a steady stream of words and music that was both lyrical and literate, romantic and satirical. After a 10-year struggle as a boy actor, he finally hit the big time with the play The Vortex, a hit in the West End of London that later moved to New York. He was 24 years old.

Coward was a man of prodigious talent and prolific output, and the trio will perform pieces that span his 60-year career, the earliest a wonderful political spoof written for the revue “Down With The Whole Darn Lot,” in 1922, in which Stanley Holloway (of “Lion and Albert” fame) was one of the original performers.

In 1923, Coward contributed to the revue London Calling, in which both he and Gertrude Lawrence starred. He wrote one of his most famous songs, “Parisian Pierrot,” for Gertie, and said she looked “ravishing” in an outfit designed by couturier Edward Molyneux. He wasn’t quite so confident in her voice, however, and was heard to say in rehearsal, “If you would sing a little more out of tune, darling, you would find yourself singing in thirds, which would be a great improvement.” Also featured in London Calling, and to be featured in The Literary Cabaret’s upcoming show, is the skit “Temperamental Honeymoon.”

In 1928, This Year of Grace, which Coward was to call “the best of all my revues,” carried a number called “Mexico,” and although Coward had a rather stereotypical attitude (it was written only 11 years after the last revolution), it has significant interest to be included in this program. Virginia Woolf wrote to him after seeing the show and said the songs “struck me on the forehead like a bullet. And what’s more I remember them and see them enveloped in atmosphere—works of art, in short.”

By the 1930s, Coward had had a string of successes—musicals, drawing-room comedies and dramas—produced both in London and New York. In February 1930, Coward, together with a traveling companion, was in the Far East. In the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, he was awakened from sleep by “Gertie appearing in a white Molyneux on a terrace in the South of France and refused to leave until 4am, by which time Private Lives, title and all, had constructed itself.” A few weeks later, recovering from the flu at the Cathay Hotel, Shanghai, he finished it. Travelling on to Viet Nam, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” popped into his head. The song was first performed by Bea Lillie, in Set to Music, and The Literary Cabaret will endeavour to give it its due and carry on the tradition. (No extra verses in that one: it was perfect right from the start.)

Throughout the ’30s, Coward had success upon success—glittering operettas, opulent reviews and the brilliant story of an era, Cavalcade. Performance pieces from the 1930s include “20th Century Blues,” “Mad About the Boy” and the music-hall spoof “Red Peppers” from Tonight at 8:30.

By the 1940s, Britain was at war and Coward’s output tended to be jingoistic. He spent time entertaining the troops and making patriotic films. But with peace came the review Sigh No More and the satirical That Is the End of the News. More plays, reviews and musicals followed throughout the 1950s and ’60s, including a career as a cabaret artist, until his death in Jamaica in 1973. Was anyone more romantic, witty and charming than Noël Coward?