GREATEST SHOW

For the first time I've been catching up via Google on some of the debates on GREATEST SHOW although obviously I'd read the Amazon reviews (see my previous blog). I was rather pleased to realise after all these years that there's actually quite a lot of (not unqualified) affection for GSITG out there as well as some really interesting and intelligent posts. And, of course, some fans who still hate it with a vengeance. But then everybody's entitled to their opinion. Oddly the only comments that irritate me are the ones where Ian Reddington's wonderful performance as Chief Clown is quite rightly praised with the additional remark "despite not having many lines." As if it'd been better if he'd been given more lines. When I was writing the script, I realised the image I had in my head of the white-faced, spangle suited clown was so powerful that to give him too much to say or too much to explain would seriously detract from his visual presence. Ian was fantastically inventive and convincing but I think the comment should really be "because he'd not been given too many lines."