Carol Burnett in Orlando
The comic legend will come to Dr. Phillips Center Feb. 18.
Carol Burnett can tell quickly if she’ll have a good audience for her question-and-answer stage show. She opens with seven minutes of clips from “The Carol Burnett Show,” the CBS variety series that ran from 1967 to 1978.
“When they laugh a lot at that, I know, ‘Oh, good, it’s going to be fun tonight,’” Burnett, 85, said recently.
She brings “An Evening of Laughter and Reflection” to Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, Feb. 18. Fans raise their hands, and she calls on them, just as she did on her TV show. “There’s no preplanned questions, I’m flying without a net,” she said with a chuckle.
She has performed the show for about 25 years, delivering it hundreds of times, including 20
last year. Burnett describes it as a conversation with the audience.
Here are edited excerpts from my chat with the TV legend:
Her favorite “Burnett Show”
sketch: I think probably “The Family.” Eunice [Burnett], Mama [Vicki Lawrence] and Ed [Harvey Korman] — I loved those characters. They were character-driven, and there were no jokes. Another one I loved doing was “Mrs. Wiggins and Mr. Tudball” with Tim [Conway].
She talks mostly about her TV
show: That’s what people seem to be more interested in. They’ll ask a question about Julie [Andrews]. I’ve got a couple stories about her, lots of stories about Tim, Vicki, Harvey, Lyle [Waggoner]. When people ask was Tim that funny in real life, I have two or three stories I can tell that show you, yes he is.
She learned from Garry Moore after co-starring on his
CBS variety show: He was the most generous person ever. His attitude was that it was a true