Humour test

I was particularly interested in this meme, as there are an awful lot of things labelled comedy that I don't find funny at all.

I got:

the Prankster

(33% dark, 31% spontaneous, 11% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | LIGHT

Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.

You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited.

..........


It's pretty much exactly right - though I don't think the title is appropriate at all.  "Smart without being mean-spirited" is spot on - and I only like pranks if the victim is likely to find them as funny as everyone else.

I'm happy to be categorised as "clean and complex" though!

Sleeping Beauty

The Moscow City Ballet had a tough task in performing Sleeping Beauty in Chichester yesterday afternoon, since the stage was obviously rather smaller than they were used to.  This was evident in the way they looked over their shoulders nervously whenever they had to move backwards, and the way they progressively foreshortened their strides when completing diagonal runs towards the front of the stage.  I don't think the surface was entirely ideal, either, as I've never heard a ballet company make so much noise!

Still, they did a pretty good job, overall, and I really enjoyed the show.

A couple of the fairies were a bit ungainly, and the dancer playing Sleeping Beauty had distractingly pronounced calf muscles, but the standard was generally good, and it was clear they were making some effort, despite the small (and not completely full) venue.

The male dancer playing Maleficent was excellent, performing difficult moves in what must have been a very heavy and cumbersome costume.  He put by far the most personality into his dancing, and stole every scene he was in.  It's a shame that the traditional sequence of (completely irrelevant to the plot) second tier solo dances meant the story part of the second half was very truncated, as I had hoped there would be a fight scene between the prince and Maleficent's minions.  As it was, her ultimate defeat was quite abrupt and seemed too easy.

However, the highlight of the show was definitely the prince, who was in a different league to the rest of the company.  He was incredibly graceful and utterly confident, as well as very light on his feet - I only heard him land twice on his highest leaps, whereas the female corps sounded like a herd of elephants.  His solo dances were very impressive and he brought Sleeping Beauty up to his level by directing her very skilfully when they danced together - as always with male ballet stars, I thought it was a shame that he was reduced to acting as her scaffolding during those scenes.

Ballet dancers have a tendency to milk the applause, taking multiple bows at the end of every scene - the audience ran out of steam before the dancers left the stage in most cases, but the prince's applause always outlasted his presence, and deservedly so.

A bright, colourful, very entertaining show, with a stand-out performance at its centre.