As It Occurs To Me whispering something and at one point exits pursued by a bear; a reference to a stage direction in "A Winter's Tale". Tiny Andrew Collings is also famous for exclaiming his own compliments and pretending they came from the audience, with the faux self-effacing phrase "Be quiet, you people in the crowd saying those things". Despite having died at the end of Series Two (reciting the poem "Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep"), Tiny Andrew returned on the Edinburgh special, claiming responsibility for most of the bad things that had occurred to Richard over the previous month (with the
The Bear (play) the gardener and coachman. "The Bear"'s comedy derives from the characters' lack of self-knowledge. The widow Popova fancies herself inconsolably bereaved, while Smirnov considers himself a misogynist. They are both stock examples of "alazons": figures made ludicrous by pretending to be more than they actually are. "The Bear" is one of many of Chekhov's "farce-vaudevilles", which also includes "The Proposal," "A Tragedian in Spite of Himself", and the unfinished "Night before the Trial". In a letter to Yakov Polonsky on February 22, 1888 Chekhov wrote: Chekhov used the French play "Les Jurons de Cadillac" by Pierre Berton as inspiration for