April 8, 2007


Take a Pew

It was the calves, you know, extending upwards from the feet — in Renner’s photo of “A Flocker’s feet in California” — that prompted my comment, my reference to the text (”But my brother Esau is an hairy man . . . “) at the core of Alan Bennett’s “Take a Pew”.

For those of you who don’t know it, below is an excerpt, and here is the complete text.

Very many years ago, when I was about as old as some of you are now, I went mountain climbing in Scotland with a friend of mine. And there was this mountain, you see, and we decided to climb it. So, very early one morning, we arose and began to climb. All day we climbed. Up and up and up — higher and higher and higher — until the valley lay very small below us, and the mists of the evening began to come down, and the sun to set. And when we reached the summit, we sat down to watch this magnificent sight of the sun going down behind the mountains. And as we watched, my friend, very suddenly, and violently . . . vomited.

posted by Sheila Ryan in humor 

comments

2 Responses to “Take a Pew”

  1. Elizabeth Perry on April 8th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    Thanks for linking to the full text of the sermon.

    The favorite line from the whole thing in our household has always been, “That, at any rate, was the gist of what he said.”

  2. Sheila Ryan on April 9th, 2007 at 8:49 am

    This morning, Elizabeth, on reading your comment, I very suddenly, and violently . . . spewed my coffee.

    (By the way, I do “Aftermyth of War”* in different voices. If ever we should get together, we might prove a great delight to ourselves and a great annoyance to others.)

    *For the uninitiated: “Aftermyth of War”, like “Take a Pew”, is a sketch from the great revue Beyond the Fringe, which featured Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Alan Bennett.