Slings and Arrows comes to DVD

Buuuuhhhzinnnnng! Seasons One and Two of Cult TV mini-series Slings and Arrows are heading for your local DVD rental shelf.

I've been a huge fan of Slings and Arrows from Season One, Episode One - Oliver's Dream .

I have just finished a three-part series on Stephen Ouimette discussing Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife .

But my fave thing to yap about with Ouimette is Slings and Arrows because our theatre company Poor Tom (hell-any community theatre troupe!!) can relate SO completely to their woes - from Don McKellar's (The Drowsy Chaperone) insufferable swishing about leather-pant director Darren Nichols (Tom and I have been THERE, done THAT) to ego-sodden actors like Season Two's Henry Breedlove ( 24's Geraint Wyn Davies) plus neurotic playwrights like Lionel Train ( Jane Show's Jonathan Crombie).

Ouimette is currently starring opposite, William Hutt, and Paul Gross, in Season 3 of Slings and Arrows (The Movie Network, Showcase, Sundance Channel,The Arts Channel) television's sublime theatre parody and critics' darling - "where the real show is behind the scenes."

For those who love theatre, Slings and Arrows is joyous with NO audience interuption.

For those IN the theatre, Slings and Arrows is must-see therapy.

Act One - The story begins with a ludicrous production of Hamlet, harried artistic director Oliver Welles, infamous nemesis Geoffrey Tennant, and the continuing behind-the-scenes saga of the New Burbage Theatre Company as it teeters on the tightrope between artistic integrity and commercial sellout.

Act Two (abridged) - When Oliver Welles snuffs it in a freak accident, New Burbage is forced to find an unlikely replacement.

Despair not, those who have not seen the show.

I present to you a three-part behind-the-scenes "blarticle" (see BLOG after next two) from the Ghost.

Oliver Welles is the artistic director of The New Burbage Festival and in the first episode (Oliver's Dream) on opening night of Midsummer Night's Dream, he gets drunk at the party and stumbles into the street and is killed by a pig truck (Ouimette laughs- the truck says Canada's Finest Hams). But he comes back as a ghost and he can only be seen by one other character the actor (Geoffrey Tennant) that has left the company seven years before and who is going to take over as artistic director.

Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) is a brilliant (but after exiting Hamlet in true "madman" fashion) eternally tortured, actor/director of his own theatre company which boasts mission statement - The Right of the Insane to Put on Productions That No One Will Ever See.

That's where Geoffery Tennant was when he left the New Burbage Company after his breakdown. He started his own company in whatever the nearest big city is called - Theatre Sans Argent - Theatre Without Money(Ouimette laughs again)

How much fun are you having and what's your favourite line so far?

Mark McKinney (show - co-writer) Don McKellar, Rachel McAdams - working with these people is a non-stop laugh fest - Paul Gross and Martha Burns.

My favourite line - Oh, there are SOOOOO many. "Not a good position for prison."