Fans of the late, great (atheist) humourist Douglas Adams will need no explanation when I refer to the “Rory Award”, but for the rest of you, I will provide one. The “Rory” is:
a) the Award for the Most Gratuitous Use of the word F–k in a Screenplay
b) the Silver Bail of Peace of the Krikkit Gate
All terribly English – having a lovely poke at the gentility of the English in their love of Cricket and their reluctance to use profanities in polite conversation (as demonstrated by this blog in the fact that I didn’t actually use the F word in the phrase above).
I think if I were to award a Rory, it would have to be for the opening lines of the film “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, an eminently quotable line if ever there was one.
However, if I were simply awarding an award for the most gratuitous use of any words at all in a review of a play, it would have to go to today’s review of the current production of Romeo and Juliet in this morning’s edition of The Age by Cameron Woodhead (not online). Cop this sentence:
The style of acting is influenced by Meyerhold, particularly his emphasis on the inextricable entwining of physiology and psychology, with emotion heightened by the mystical impact of gesture.
As Manuel would say: Que?
Oh, and before I forget, little known fact #136,390 is that in the American edition of Adam’s “Life, the Universe and Everything”, the Rory Award is for the most gratuitous use of the word “Belgium”.
I say again: Que?
I am a great fan of the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Pity that Adams was an atheist as he never came across that way ,more agnostic I thought. His description of how Marvin the paranoid android died I thought was exceptional. Ironic that perhaps God’s final words to him may be “I Apologise for the inconvenience”
It was certainly a great inconvenience to the world of humour that he died so young. And it is worth reflecting that Adams and Dawkins were great mates. I can’t stand Dawkins’ writing, yet I love Adams’ work. Yet both were committed to the same atheistic ideology. Perhaps all this proves is that humour is an essential element in any world view.
Someone recently calculated the number of F-words in the much-hyped movie In Bruges, and discovered that there were, if memory serves me, 147. Since the movie itself is only 107 minutes long, this suggests a truly stupendous poverty of linguistic invention.
Yes, but not on the part of the screenwriters; on the part of the characters they created.