I haven’t written any clerihews for several months, but one came to me unbidden earlier today. I stumbled across a website whose content was “Trivia about Olivia de Havilland“. Now I don’t know much about the actress Olivia de Havilland — and this post isn’t about her — but I did notice that the word ‘trivia’ could just as easily rhyme with ‘Olivier’ as ‘Olivia’….
The first half of a clerihew was born. But what about the rest?
Laurence Olivier, arguably the finest actor of the 20th century, was married three times to fellow actors — Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright. I realised immediately that ‘Esmond’ was going to be difficult to rhyme. ‘Leigh’ works much better as a rhyme … but clerihews work better when the rhyme is less obvious. That left ‘Plowright’.
This clerihew is about how Olivier’s passion for trivia got short shrift in the Olivier/Plowright household. Even better for the clerihew, both had been honoured for their services to theatre — Olivier with a peerage in 1970, Plowright with an OBE in 2004.
And here’s the clerihew
Lord Laurence Olivier
Was addicted to trivia.
But his facts, no matter how right,
Never impressed Dame Joan Plowright.
Clerihews 