Caitlin Moran of The Times thought she was being frightfully witty when commenting, in her Celebrity Watch column, on reports that Brokeback Mountain, the “classic movie of same-sex love”, is to be made into a musical. “Can CW be the first to say Oklahomo!?”she asked.
Well, no Caitlin, you can’t be the first – 28 years ago you were beaten to it by a clumsy (or mischievous) typist in the classified ads department of… The Times.
The advert was placed by impresario Cameron Mackintosh and was meant to announce a new production of the famous musical Oklahoma! at the Palace Theatre.
Thanks to the new Times archive, the advert can be seen in all its, er, glory, as can a letter to the paper days later from Mackintosh, in which he writes: “I wish to reassure your readers that things are not too up-to-date in Kansas City, and that the farmer and the cowhand are still only friends.”
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