Krin, I'm not sure that this is the sort of performance you're after, but a
    stand-out for me has to be John Cleese's castle-bound french soldier in
    'Monty Python & the Holy Grail' with dialogue rich in type-cast franca
    lingua (your mother was a hamster...I fart in your general direction...why
    do think I speak with this outrageuos accent?...etc)
 
    Bye the bye, Australian TV has recently seen the 'live' ER episode. It was
    heavily promoted as a *live* performance, albeit a few months after the
    actual event. I can only presume the episode replayed here was the third
    version recorded for syndication. There were certainly no obvious 'snafuus',
    although the direction wasn't as frenetic as normal. I thought it a very
    smart plotline to use 'cinema-verite' as the main visual style, to cover
    any shakes or out-of-focus occurences in the shooting pattern. It bodes well
    for the state of television drama generally when the major US networks and
    series can push the envelope like this and get viewer support.
 
    cheers
 
    RP
 
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