Ashman is also a particularly great demo singer, as he actually does character voices and is almost in the Arlen league for composer/lyricist singers. Hamlisch joins in for the Smile stuff.

This week was a bit more relaxed. On the movie front, I watched Smile, Funny Face, Life of Pi, The Lovers and Broadway: The Golden Age.

I've always liked Every Sperm is Sacred in the Monty Python musical moments sweep-stakes.

No, it's because my friend didn't think of himself as an old queen.

I have a friend who's a larger than life sort, and I used to compare him to Uncle Monty all the time. He thought it was funny until he watched the movie and got quite annoyed - which of course made it even better for me.

Last week, I shot a short film while living in my friends garage. It took the entire week, shooting every day (though some days we shot more than others due to actors only being available at certain times). It's a comedic caper, with 28 scenes and 34 pages of script.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Don't forget The Miller's Son from A Little Night Music. For some reason, Sondheim's first three '70s shows all have numbers for minor characters that are some of the best of the show (I'm Still Here obviously, plus Another Hundred People). They also tend to articulate thematic points

Have you seen Charisse dancing in Party Girl?

Thank you for reminding me of some of my favourite scenes from Assassins, which I forgot to put on my list.

Thank you for reminding me of some of my favourite scenes from Assassins, which I forgot to put on my list.

It's weird, isn't it? Quite possibly the best attempt to write an original integrated film musical - though I would have preferred songs to sung-through - and it's barely known about/acknowledged by people today.

For some reason this made me think of What's the Use? from Candide.

Now that a few other people have started doing lists, I thought I might get in on the act as well:

The Girl Hunt Ballet is very cool. Plus it's one of the reflexive '50s musicals (like Singin' in the Rain) that comments on the form up to that point, so it's easy to make comparisons between it and the similarly implausible scenes from '30s musicals like 42nd street.

This is tough. I'm going to boil it down to one passage from stage and one from film. I pick the opening sequence of All That Jazz (On Broadway), and the opening sequence of Sweeney Todd (from "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" through to "My Friends"). The Sweeney Todd one may be  kind of cheating - if it is, it would be…

I kind of missed last week due to New Years (and that I'm basically sleeping on a friend's floor while on holiday and have lost track of the days). So over the last two weeks on the movie front, I saw The Saddest Music in the World, Veronika Voss, Safe House and most of Rain Man.

Broadway is basically Jewish (or was, especially in the 1950's and '60s).

Interesting reaction, because when I re-watched Raiders a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how well-plotted it is.

Interesting reaction, because when I re-watched Raiders a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how well-plotted it is.