Word: brannigan
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Scene of the crime is an improbable Manhattan town house where Cartoonist Lemmon, abetted by his man Friday, Terry-Thomas, draws a James Bondish comic strip called Bash Brannigan. The place is a boy's garden of sex and violence. "No gay little chintzes, no big gunky lamps, the complete absence of a woman's touch," gloats Terry-Thomas. But one night at a bachelor dinner, someone wheels in a gigantic cake that gives forth a frosted blonde (Virna Lisi), and Lemmon, anesthetized by alcohol, begins to chew his cheeks like a man cutting a sweet tooth...
...love and stuffs him with pasta until he has rings under his eyes and a bulge over his belt. Dragging his paunch through the men's-club swimming pool, he makes the mere act of floating seem a wry comment on the leaden responsibilities of marriage. Even Bash Brannigan evolves into a folksy domestic series called The Brannigans. Finally, Lemmon rebels. Both he and Bash decide to dispose of their mates by dumping them (Brrrp! Blasp!) into cement mixers. "A tomb of gloop from a gloppeta-gloppeta machine," he schemes dreamily...
Handel: Acis & Galatea (Joan Sutherland, Peter Pears, Owen Brannigan, David Galliver; Philomusica of London with the St. Anthony Singers, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult; London). A slightly cut version of the masque that became the most popular of Handel's works in his own lifetime. The score is fresh and frothy, the choral numbers a wonder of vocal crosshatching, and the performance controlled and clear. Soprano Sutherland trills her lines with transparent ease...
...Ajax Cassidy (Peter Donald) is a tuberculous, growler-rushing, clay-pipe Irishman who thinks he is "not long for this worrld." He is also the newest and least-developed of Fred's characters, but as Donald reads the role, it contains some winning bits of brannigan. A favorite Cassidy wheeze: having resolved to give up the stuff, he puts himself to the test by trying to pass Kerrigan's Kosy Korner without dropping in. After a desperate struggle he makes it-and promptly returns to Kerrigan's to celebrate his moral victory with a snootful...
...Harrington: Come-All-Ye's (Decca, 12 sides). Wonderful Irish folk classics sung with a brogue. Included are Paddy McGinty's Goat, Brannigan's Pup and McSorley's Two Beautiful Twins ("What an elegant time at the christening we had!"). Performance: good...