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Bobby G
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 4,642
- Location
- Wonderful Welwyn Garden City, Herts
One of the worst gigs I ever did wasn't so bad on a personal level, it was the show itself, it was a stinker!
Let me take you back about 16 years; I worked for a worldwide computer company which was undergoing major structural change and relaunching it's mission statement in terms of the then current business paradigm in the upper management levels in the pan-European territories. They really do talk like that you know.
Anyway, one of these Managers had the brilliant idea that the relaunch and new business model (stop it!!) should be presented, rather than in the traditional manner involving lectures,flipcharts and overhead projectors, and a Q&A at the end etc, as a musical play. This to be presented to several hundred top-level managers from all over Europe.
Someone, a friend of the Manager with theatrical connections who could also play a bit, was drafted in to script and score the play, and through the friend-of-a-friend network I became involved as bass player in the 'pit orchestra' to give 3 musicians including the playwright a rather grandiose title. 3 'name actors' were also found - you know, actors who had done a few episodes of Corrie, or been a baddie in the Bill. Other parts were played by employees of the computer company
So, anyway, rehearsals went swimmingly, although the musical interludes and songs were done in isolation from the main thrust of the 'storyline' - just the band and main singers without the chorus and, ahem, dancers.
We didn't all get together for a proper rehearsal until the day before the live, once-only performance, by which time it was very apparent that it was a) going to take more than a day of full rehearsal to get it to a stage where you would want to present it, b) embarrassingly full, to us mere mortals, of the most fearful, bloated, self-important management speak outside of Microsoft or IBM, not only the spoken parts but also the song 'lyrics', c) amateurish (despite having 3 'real actors' who were all lovely) and incoherent in the extreme, d) meaningless, e) crap, and f) really crap.
Anyway, we presented this thing to an audience who spoke about 18 different languages, started off bemused, went through indifference, boredom and near-hostility to it's awful end. The only good thing about it was that some company employees (us on stage) had made upper management feel the same as us when faced with one of their endless meetings or presentations. Luckily, we all saw the funny side.
The other good thing about it was that it was 4 days out of the office (or in my case, off the road) as the whole thing took place at the company's expense, in the glorious location of Montreux, Switzerland!
Cheers, Bob
Let me take you back about 16 years; I worked for a worldwide computer company which was undergoing major structural change and relaunching it's mission statement in terms of the then current business paradigm in the upper management levels in the pan-European territories. They really do talk like that you know.
Anyway, one of these Managers had the brilliant idea that the relaunch and new business model (stop it!!) should be presented, rather than in the traditional manner involving lectures,flipcharts and overhead projectors, and a Q&A at the end etc, as a musical play. This to be presented to several hundred top-level managers from all over Europe.
Someone, a friend of the Manager with theatrical connections who could also play a bit, was drafted in to script and score the play, and through the friend-of-a-friend network I became involved as bass player in the 'pit orchestra' to give 3 musicians including the playwright a rather grandiose title. 3 'name actors' were also found - you know, actors who had done a few episodes of Corrie, or been a baddie in the Bill. Other parts were played by employees of the computer company
So, anyway, rehearsals went swimmingly, although the musical interludes and songs were done in isolation from the main thrust of the 'storyline' - just the band and main singers without the chorus and, ahem, dancers.
We didn't all get together for a proper rehearsal until the day before the live, once-only performance, by which time it was very apparent that it was a) going to take more than a day of full rehearsal to get it to a stage where you would want to present it, b) embarrassingly full, to us mere mortals, of the most fearful, bloated, self-important management speak outside of Microsoft or IBM, not only the spoken parts but also the song 'lyrics', c) amateurish (despite having 3 'real actors' who were all lovely) and incoherent in the extreme, d) meaningless, e) crap, and f) really crap.
Anyway, we presented this thing to an audience who spoke about 18 different languages, started off bemused, went through indifference, boredom and near-hostility to it's awful end. The only good thing about it was that some company employees (us on stage) had made upper management feel the same as us when faced with one of their endless meetings or presentations. Luckily, we all saw the funny side.
The other good thing about it was that it was 4 days out of the office (or in my case, off the road) as the whole thing took place at the company's expense, in the glorious location of Montreux, Switzerland!
Cheers, Bob
