Elaine “Write That Down!” Paige helps Phil with his dissertation

Although Phil’s forthcoming magnum opus is concerned principally with the consumption of food on stage, he is also interested in the technicalities of on-stage drinking (especially alcohol, of course) so he was thrilled to hear Elaine Paige share some of the tricks of her trade.

Paige reveals in a new audio download interview on the Official London Theatre website that the champagne she drinks in her role as the drowsy chaperone is in fact ginger ale and the other alcohol is merely water, which to the Whingers sounds like a wasted opportunity.

More interestingly though: Ms Paige is apparently quite windy and the tricky theatrical art of drinking has to be negotiated with care so as not to bring on the burps. Her main technique is to ask co-star Summer Strallen to speak more slowly to allow her to pace herself.

Listening to it, the elephant in the room seems to be the fact that Drowsy is closing criminally early, but given that the interviewer says,”I’m sure it’s going to be a great success” it was presumably recorded a while ago.

But it’s not all serious, technical stage-craft stuff. On a lighter note, Ms Paige thinks political correctness has gone too far and is an assault on democracy. “You can’t even drive your car or walk into a building without being filmed,” she laments a propos of, umm, not sure. Write that down!