Well, it is my birthday next month...
Showing posts with label Angela Lansbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angela Lansbury. Show all posts
Tuesday, 16 July 2024
Saturday, 23 December 2023
Please, Santa, Please!
On this Xmas Eve Eve [© Savvy], is it too late to put this on my list..?!!!
"Treguna mekoides trecorum satis dee!"
Wednesday, 12 October 2022
A legend
"I had the ability, but I didn't have the name. They could have built me, which is what they did with Deborah Kerr, but I don't think I was quite hot enough in the looks department, quite frankly. I was all talent and no looks."
As I said of her way back in 2016:
She's won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award, as well as an Honorary Academy Award. In her eight decade career she's worked with them all, including Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, George Sanders, Judy Garland, Deborah Kerr, Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, Hedy Lamarr, Tony Curtis, Paul Newman, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley - and all this even before landing her memorable turns in the star-studded Agatha Christie adaptations Death On The Nile and The Mirror Crack'd, and her later immortality as TV's "Jessica Fletcher" in Murder She Wrote (in which guest stars dropped like flies)...
The death of the magnificent Dame Angela Lansbury has hit us hard here at Dolores Delargo Towers.
Mere words cannot do the pinnacle of our pantheon of Patron Saints true justice, so instead let us wallow in highlights from her incredible career...
A "Dame-fest":
One of her many tributes to Sondheim...
...who cast her in one of the finest roles of her stage career:
Here she is in glittering form, performing her show-stopper Mame at the 1975 Tony awards...
...and again, with an all singing, all-high-kicking classic:
She held her own against the memory of The Merm, with one of our eternal theme tunes here at Dolores Delargo Towers:
...and she was the immortal "Salome Otterborne":
After all that, it's time for some gentle exercise...
RIP, Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (16th October 1925 – 11th October 2022)
Thursday, 2 December 2021
Sondheim(s) of the Day - "Killers" special: Sweeney Todd, Assassins
Not so much a musical as an opera, truth be told, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - true to its source material in the Victorian "penny dreadfuls" in the UK - is probably one of the bloodthirstiest productions to open on Broadway; although I suppose back in 1979 the "horror genre" [thanks to Hammer Studios, The Exorcist, Carrie, The Omen and so on] was rather popular, so maybe its timing was quite good after all.
Everyone knows the story: psychopathic barber, bent on revenge, pairs up with deranged pie-shop owner who can't get her hands on any tasty fresh meat - with chilling results! Interspersed with a naive love story involving Sweeney's daughter Johanna and the sailor Anthony who rescued him from drowning, and some black-comedy moments involving rival barbers and the simple-minded assistant at the pie shop Toby, it's certainly a tangled web, brimming with wonderful numbers. And, without further ado...Attend the Tale of Sweeney Todd!
[Another Sondheim "standard" that has been covered by loads of artistes, in and out of the production, including MegaBabs, Renee Fleming, Michael Feinstein, (ahem) Jamie Cullum, Lea Salonga, Michael Ball with Alfie Boe, Josh Groban and Cleo Laine]By the way, no surprises; there is no "Happy Ever After" in this tale!
We've never seen the Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter film, but this is another show in Mr Sondheim's estimable repertoire that we've been to see on stage twice - in completely different productions and five years apart. The first was a major "in concert" revival at The Royal Festival Hall way back in 2007, starring the booming Bryn Terfel as "Sweeney Todd" and Maria Friedman as "Mrs Lovett", and also featured Daniel Boys and Philip Quast [NB the format was later revived again in 2014 with Emma Thompson baking the pies]. It was, as one might imagine, very impressive. Bryn Terfel is quite scary when in full voice!
The second version we went to see was the much bigger, well-promoted, and fully staged and dramatised version at the Adelphi Theatre in 2012 - with a surprising and frighteningly convincing Michael Ball in the title role, and Imelda Staunton as "Mrs Lovett". It was utterly mind-blowing! Quite rightly it won three Olivier Awards: Best Show, and one each for Mr Ball and Miss Staunton. We loved it.
All about Sweeney Todd at Everything Sondheim.
Speaking of "loving it", one of Mr Sondheim's lesser-known [and certainly less-often-revived - although a version is apparently currently showing off-Broadway in 2021] creations is a very weird concept indeed...
I mean, how many "artistic types" would think: "I know what would make a great plot for a musical! Every assassin or would-be-assassin of Presidents of the United States of America implausibly gathered in a Scooby-Doo-style sinister abandoned funfair to sing about their deeds, and to join together in harmony to implore Lee Harvey Oswald to pull the trigger on JFK? That'd go down well."
But. It. Works.
Assassins has had a bit of a chequered history, for sure - its original off-Broadway production in 1990 closed after just 73 performances, and the London run at The Donmar after a mere 76; its proposed revival was delayed for three years after the 11th September terrorist attacks, but once it finally opened (with Neil Patrick Harris and Michael Cerveris), it won a Tony Award. We went to see the 2014 Menier Chocolate Factory version, starring Catherine Tate, the lovely Aaron Tveit, Jamie Parker, Mike McShane and Andy Nyman - where we were in the front row, right in the middle of the action; and we were spooked to bits at having various members of the cast in turn pointing guns in our faces!
It's a twisted idea, but with a helluva score, from which this is merely a soupçon...
Boom!
A comprehensive analysis of the plot, courtesy of the New Line Theatre site; alternatively read more on Wikipedia.
RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)
[One of a series of tributes I will be posting to Mr Sondheim this week.]
Previous "Sondheim of the Day" entries:
- Saturday: Company
- Sunday: West Side Story
- Monday: Gypsy
- Tuesday: A Little Night Music
- Wednesday: Follies
Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Sondheim of the Day - A Little Night Music
During the solstice in Scandinavia, the sun does not set for days at a time. Dating back to pagan tradition, Midsummer festivities are notoriously raucous social-more-thwarting revelry. Against this ripe backdrop in turn-of-the-century Sweden, A Little Night Music celebrates the romantic foibles of Desiree Armfeldt and friends over one eventful extended sunset.- from The Huntingdon Theatre websiteStephen Sondheim and the original director Harold Prince “always wanted to do a musical that dealt with love and lovers and mismatched partners...love and foolishness.” While looking for material to adapt into a romantic operetta, they found their own perfect match in the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night. “Bergman achieves one of the few classics of carnal comedy,” wrote renowned film critic Pauline Kael, “a tragicomic chase and roundelay that raises boudoir farce to elegance and lyric poetry.” While Sondheim and book writer Hugh Wheeler retraced the romantic runarounds of the film’s story, they sweetened Bergman’s cynicism, allowing “the darkness to peep through a whipped-cream surface. Whipped cream with knives.”
From its debut in 1973, A Little Night Music was warmly received by the critics and reviewers, and has been revived myriad times since - the show is often cited as one of Sondheim's finest works. Conceived as a sort of operetta, virtually all of the music is, unusually, written in waltz (three-quarter) time - and from its magnificent score, a legendary showbiz standard (and pop hit) was born. But first, on with the show...
[Other notable versions of this remarkable number include Elaine Stritch, Dame Cleo Laine, Dame Sian Phillips, and even Margaret Hamilton(!) - but my fave is the original by Hermione Gingold (no video for that, unfortunately)]And finally... The number that gained a life all of its own - probably Sondheim's most recognised and famous song. It has been covered by just about everyone in the business, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Collins (whose version was a huge hit in 1975), MegaBabs, Sarah Vaughan, Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews, Lou Rawls, Shirley Bassey, Blossom Dearie, Jack Jones, Johnny Mathis, Cleo Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Maria Friedman, Ruthie Henshall, Michael Ball, Glenn Close, the Tiger Lilies and even Dame Edna Everage (and many, many more besides). However, this is the lady for whom it was written:
Other notable "Desirees" include Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons, Sally Ann Howes, Dorothy Tutin, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Juliet Stevenson, Bernadette Peters and Judi Dench]We went to see it back in (gulp!) 2009 - at the "home" of many a successful Sondheim production the Menier Chocolate Factory - starring Maureen Lipman as Madame Armfeldt, Hannah Waddingham as Desiree and Alexander Hanson as Frederik, and loved it.
A Little Night Music is quite simply magnificent, and deservedly revered as a classic.
All you need to know about the show is on the Everything Sondheim site.
RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)
[One of a series of tributes I will be posting to Mr Sondheim this week.]
Previous "Sondheim of the Day" entries:
Saturday, 2 November 2019
Monday, 28 January 2019
A bit of oral
Today marks the start of National Storytelling Week, apparently. According to the website:
Oral storytelling is one of the most ancient art forms, continuing to this day as a vibrant part of culture throughout the world and so many of these old tales have their roots in the wonders of the outside world - possibly the most mystical place of all!What better way to kick off a week about storytelling than with a work by one of the greatest exponents of the genre (in musical form, of course) Mr Stephen Sondheim, who reinterpreted the ideas of two others with sublime powers of imagination the Brothers Grimm for Into The Woods:
And, as a special bonus this Tacky Music Monday, how about the hilarious "who has the worst Princess-in-peril dilemma" duet Agony - featuring Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen as the "Handsome Princes"?
Have a great week, peeps - and try and live happily ever after...
Tuesday, 16 October 2018
Ever as before, and ever just as sure as the sun will rise
It's Dame Angela Lansbury's 93rd birthday today!
All hail.
And to celebrate, here is our Patron Saint of theatrical perfection herself live in 2003, in the company of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir:
Incomparable!
Many Happy Returns, Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury, DBE (born 16th October 1925)
Sunday, 16 October 2016
Who could ask for anything more?
"I absolutely do not have a retirement age...I believe age should not stop you from keeping on."
She shares her birthday with a bit of a "mixed bag" of other famous names - including Nobel laureate Günter Grass, organist Reginald Dixon, singers Max Bygraves and Emile Ford, guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp, orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert, arty chanteuse Nico, fellow actresses Linda Darnell, Suzanne Somers and Carmen Sevilla, soul singer Sugar Pie DeSanto, actor Peter Bowles and, greatest of them all, Mr Oscar Wilde. She's won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes and an Olivier Award, as well as an Honorary Academy Award. In her eight decade career she's worked with them all, including Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, George Sanders, Judy Garland, Deborah Kerr, Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, Hedy Lamarr, Tony Curtis, Paul Newman, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley - and all this even before landing her memorable turns in the star-studded Agatha Christie adaptations Death On The Nile and The Mirror Crack'd, and her later immortality as TV's "Jessica Fletcher" in Murder She Wrote (in which guest stars dropped like flies)...
Dame Angela Lansbury (for it is she), we salute you!
Here is our adored Premier-League Patron Saint herself, working the boards with another beloved Dame - Julie Andrews - in a magnificent tableau of tributes to the great ladies of showbiz: The Dolly Sisters, Miss Ethel Merman, Miss Helen Morgan, Miss Eleanor Powell, Miss Mae West, Señorita Carmen Miranda, Miss Judy Garland and (ahem) The Rockettes.
It's a tour-de-force, peeps!
Happy birthday, Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury DBE (born 16th October 1925)
Read my tribute on her 90th, and on her 89th, and my blog about our visit to see her in person in Blithe Spirit.
I AM Angela Lansbury...
Sunday, 28 December 2014
A year in culture, Dolores Delargo Towers style
As you might tell, I am in a retrospective mood, dear reader. Any summary of any year is bound to be somewhat subjective - so you will forgive, of course, my indulgence in what we experienced of 2014 rather than any wider picture.
In a year when we lost so many of our cultural icons (more of that later, no doubt, in my annual "roll-call" of those who died this year), sport and Strictly Come Dancing were considered serious topics of conversation even in the broadsheets, and the so-called "Culture Minister" Ed Vaizey remarked that he preferred Classic FM to Radio 3, what constitutes a "cultural highlight"? In our world, anything that doesn't involve pop music or politics, I suppose...
Those of you paying attention to my previous "review of the year" will note that references to "music" did not include the "classical" end of that extensive artform. Yet we did have some excellent moments of that kind. The aforementioned Pet Shop Boys Prom was indeed a fully featured part of the prestigious BBC Proms Season - and Vince'n'Neil's A Man From the Future was a masterful symphonic work, worthy of many a composer beloved of the regular denizens of The Royal Albert Hall during that three-month extravaganza. It was sublimely realised, in conjunction with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Dominic Wheeler and the elegant narration of Miss Juliet Stephenson, and a ground-breaking event that I truly appreciated. It was also the only "true Prom" I attended.
The Proms season ends, as it does every year, with the triumphal flag-waving finale encompassing Land of Hope and Glory, Jerusalem and Rule, Britannia! And this year (as every year for along time), we made it to our usual great vantage point in Hyde Park to watch it beamed in on the live screens - and to take part in all its flag-waving adrenalin-pumping grandeur. This year, the "Britannia" part was sung with the fine voice of Roderick Williams, and on stage at Proms in the Park we were also treated to some beautiful operatic singing by Pumeza Matshikiza and Vittorio Grigolo.
I concluded the year with two more classical events: Bach and Wagner at St John's Smith Square and the BBC recording of their tribute to Ron Goodwin - which made for quite a mix in the classical canon.
And what of the theatre? 2014 turned out to be another fine year, with both major and minor productions that we thoroughly enjoyed. Of the latter, there was the thought-provoking and utterly fab Rachael's Café and the masterful one-man performance of Didn't You Used To Be Derek Jacobi?. Simon Callow's Being Shakespeare was magnificent, as was our recent adult panto-substitute Mrs Hudson's Christmas Corker.
Of our major theatrical events during the year, the new - and awe-inspiring - Menier Chocolate Factory production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins was an absolute highlight. However the big event of the entire year was most definitely our pilgrimage to pay a deferential tribute at the feet of the great Dame Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit. A once-in-a-lifetime experience, never, ever to be forgotten!
Speaking of iconic figures in our cultural landscape, John Waters' This Filthy World, Vol 2: Filthier and Dirtier one-man show wasn't half-bad, either. In complete contrast, we were honoured to see and listen to the venerable Dame Joan Plowright in conversation.
We managed to get a bit of art'n'history-type culture (with a capital "K") in, too. Of course.
Not least of such events were our visit to see the sumptuous Cheapside Hoard, our "Night at the Museum" at the Fin de Siècle Fantasy Egypt open evening in the Petrie Museum of Egyptology, the preview of the British Museum's massive Vikings: life and legend exhibition, or any of the events associated with the cultural milestone that is LGBT History Month.
Every month (well, almost) our literary desires have been sated once again by the wonders of Paul Burston's Polari - "London's peerless gay literary salon". With headliners and guest stars as diverse this year as Christopher Fowler, Maureen Duffy, Ali Smith, Neil Bartlett, Paul Bailey, Mari Hannah, James Maker, Karen McLeod, Sarah Westwood, Alex Marwood, (Sophie Ellis-Bextor's mum) Janet Ellis, Tiffany Murray, VG Lee, Helen Smith, Matt Cain, Diriye Osman, Susie Boyt and Will Davis (and many more) on the bill, it is an utter feast for the brain.
As a personal high point, 2014 was also the year that I was thrilled to get my first ever book review in print in a national publication - that of the wonderful Rupert Smith's Interlude (in Beige gay magazine)!
At the "lower end" of the cultural scale, we are not massive cinema-goers. If we deign to go at all, this usually involves something from vintage Hollywood at the British Film Institute or the like. But there was one "must-see" that drew me and some of our gang out this year - the spectacular cinematic triumph that is The Grand Budapest Hotel. Simply marvellous, daahlings! I also went on my own to see the documentary film of the V&A's ground-breaking David Bowie Is exhibition, but that - including films on telly, of which we catch very few - was about it.
So what about television? Very selective, dear. We don't watch Sherlock, Game of Thrones, Dr Who, soaps or police/crime dramas, for instance. "Reality TV" shows and so-called "talent" competitions are anathema to us. The closest we get to being "hooked" on a serial is - in common with the rest of the world - Downton Abbey, and, for sheer camp entertainment value, Benidorm. Other than that, anything by Sir David Attenborough or Andrew Marr, documentary series fronted by the likes of Michael Portillo, Dr Lucy Worsley, Dr Janina Ramirez, Neil Oliver, Professor Mary Beard, Andrew Graham-Dixon or any of that triumvirate of "factual-programme-totty" presenters Simon Reeve, Dr James Fox or Alastair Sooke, quiz shows such as QI and Only Connect, and Gardeners' World and Antiques Roadshow will do nicely, thank you.
Two TV programmes that we did watch stood out from the rest. In the centenary year of Wales' "Number 1 Son" Dylan Thomas, the magnificently-cast ensemble reading of Under Milk Wood was an absolute joy from beginning to end, and possibly the best tribute the man could have received.
The televisual event of the year, however, must have been the accurate-to-the-last-mannerism portrayal by Sheridan Smith of that [pause for over-used cliché] "National Treasure", Cilla Black! If Miss Smith doesn't win an award for this, then there is no justice.
There's probably loads more I could cover (radio, for instance), but as with all such summaries, one has to stop somewhere.
However, there are more 2014 recollections to come - stay tuned!
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Dame Commander
One of the greatest of our Patron Saints Dame Angela Lansbury - who we had the privilege of seeing for the first time on stage this year in Blithe Spirit - is 89 years old today!
All hail.
To celebrate, in a most suitable fashion, here she is - together with two other great ladies from our Pantheon, Miss Chita Rivera and Miss Carol Channing, and a cast of thousands - giving her own nod to a man who did so much for her Broadway career (at the 2010 Kennedy Honours Gala) Mr Jerry Herman...
The Best Of Times Is Now? If I had been in this audience, you bet!
Many happy returns to a fantabulosa lady - and remember, I am Angela Lansbury!
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury, DBE (born 16th October 1925)
Friday, 14 March 2014
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Last night we had an enchanting and other-worldy encounter, a spellbinding visitation - and no, not just from the ghosts on the stage, but from the proximity of a true star.
An actress who was Oscar nominated (for Gaslight) in the year World War 2 ended; whose much-lauded star turn in the Broadway musical Mame was in the same year as "Busby's Babes" won the Football World Cup for England; who turned down the lead in The Killing of Sister George and the role of 'Nurse Ratched' in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; was the first 'Mrs Lovett' in Sweeney Todd; and whose role as 'Jessica Fletcher' in Murder, She Wrote (and her production company that made the show) made her at one point in the 90s the highest-paid person on American television - Dame Angela Lansbury!
The "badge of honour"
Needless to say, we were in awe. The production that lured her back to her native London was, of course, Noel Coward's sublime Blithe Spirit - an almost "Aesop-ian" allegory on the old saying "be careful what you wish for", whereby the supercilious would-be novelist ('Charles Condimine', excellently played by Downton Abbey's Charles Edwards) entices a medium (the Dame as 'Madame Arcati') who everybody considers an eccentric fake to perform a séance, purely for his research purposes. The ruse backfires as - much to the chagrin of his waspish current wife ('Ruth', a superbly 'Coward-esque' Janie Dee), the spiritual forces at work prove to be all too real, as the ghost of his flighty and selfish late first wife ('Elvira' - the joyful Jemima Rooper) materialises to him, and him alone.
This is - as to be expected from any play by 'The Master' - a deliciously pithy entrée to a hilarious farce, as the ghostly (ghastly) brat-wife attempts firstly to drive her living replacement (who gradually through the story reveals herself to be as every bit as coldly manipulative as her invisible foe is impetuous) to utter distraction, then reveals her actual (more sinister) intentions to remove Charles from this mortal coil altogether, in order to brighten up her boredom in the "spectral plane".
As Elvira's behaviour - remember she is visible only to Charles - convinces first Ruth, then their splendidly 'uptight-British' friends 'Doctor Bradman' (played - and it took a while for the penny to drop who he was - by Simon Jones, more famous as 'Arthur Dent' in the original BBCTV Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy) and his wife (Serena Evans) that Charles is going mad; then the ill-fated Ruth realises that Elvira is in fact not a figment of his imagination after all, it's time for Madame Arcati to ride to the rescue.
Dame Angela's performance as the Madame is a tour-de-force of hysterically funny, offbeat eccentricity, and (needless to say, with an audience - including our gang - practically baying for her to appear) lights up the stage in every scene. Her dottiness as she hurls herself into a trance, dancing around the room and gesticulating wildly like some elderly Cyndi Lauper, her insistence on riding her bicycle everywhere even in a thunderstorm ("It's only eight miles!") and her implacable belief in the spirit world and its foibles (despite her apparent amazement when her incantations actually seem to do something) are both endearing and revealing of the fact that even at 88 years old, this is an actress who rises above so many others in her field. I'm not sure whether it was just because we were still in previews, but I sensed at certain points in the production when Miss Dee and others stumbled over their lines that even the cast may be fearful of playing against such a mistress of the stage and screen.
Nevertheless this production is triumphal, a superb revival of a superb story; and we enjoyed it as much for its own sake as for the presence of Angela Lansbury. The whole cast is ideally suited to the "drawing-room-farce-gone-bad" style for which Mr Coward is so lauded - particular mention must go to the "yokel" housemaid Edith (Patsy Ferran), whose comic miming helps the visual comedy of several scenes, and whose character proves in the end to be pivotal to the whole story - and the audience gave all of them, as well as our star, rousing applause.
All together, a most enjoyable and unforgettable (and quite probably unrepeatable, given that the octogenarian Miss Lansbury is not exactly a regular on the West End stage) experience!
"The Lansburys" on tour
Lansbury-mania
Here's the Dame herself talking about the show:
Blithe Spirit is on a strictly limited run with Dame Angela in the title role, and is booking at the Gielgud Theatre until 7th June 2014.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
I acquired some position, plus a tiny Titian
Congratulations, and a very Happy New Year, to our ultimate Patron Saint Dame Angela Lansbury, anointed in HM the Queen's New Year's Honours.
Well overdue! Here she is singing a magnificent version of Liaisons from A Little Night Music:
At the villa of the Baron De Signac,
Where I spent a somewhat infamous year,
At the villa of the Baron De Signac
I had ladies in attendance,
Fire-opal pendants...
Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
Disgraceful! What's become of them?
Some of them
Hardly pay their shoddy way.
What once was a rare champagne
Is now just an amiable hock,
What once was a villa, at least,
Is "digs."
What once was a gown with train
Is now just a simple little frock,
What once was a sumptuous feast
Is figs.
No - not even figs - raisins!
Ah, liaisons!
Now, where was I? Where was I? Oh, yes...
At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara,
Who was prematurely deaf but a dear,
At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara
I acquired some position
Plus a tiny Titian...
Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
To see them - indiscriminate
Women, it
Pains me more than I can say,
The lack of taste that they display!
Where is style?
Where is skill?
Where is forethought?
Where's discretion of the heart?
Where's passion in the art?
Where's craft?
With a smile
And a will
But with more thought,
I acquired a château
Extravagantly overstaffed.
Too many people muddle sex
With mere desire,
And when emotion intervenes
The nets descend.
It should on no account perplex,
Or worse, inspire;
It's but a pleasurable means
To a measurable end.
Why does no one comprehend?
Let us hope this lunacy's just a trend.
Now where was I? Where was I? Oh, yes...
In the castle of the King of the Belgians,
(We would visit through a false chiffonier)
In the castle of the King of the Belgians
Who, when things got rather touchy,
Deeded me a duchy...
Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
Untidy! Take my daughter, I
Taught her, I
Tried my best to point the way.
I even named her Desiree.
In a world where the kings are employers,
Where the amateur prevails
And delicacy fails
To pay,
In a world where the princes are lawyers,
What can anyone expect
Except to recollect...
2014 may well turn out to be another Lansbury Year, as we have booked our seats to see her (probably last) West End performance in Blithe Spirit this coming March...
I AM Angela Lansbury!
Friday, 29 November 2013
The return of the ultimate Patron Saint
From the BBC:
Angela Lansbury is to appear on the London stage for the first time in almost 40 years in a new production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.I think we may well be camping out (oo-er) for tickets for this once-in-a-lifetime theatrical spectacular!
She will reprise the role of Madame Arcati, which she first played on Broadway in 2009, winning a Tony Award.
The 88-year-old has not appeared in the West End since 1974, when she played the lead role in the Sondheim's Gypsy.
Her return to the West End is limited to 15 weeks, after which she must return to the US for a wedding.
I am Angela Lansbury...
Gielgud Theatre
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Blow a kiss. Take a bow.
Today is the 87th birthday of a truly wonderful icon - an inspiration for showbiz queens everywhere, Miss Angela Brigid Lansbury!
Quite rightly, we have Miss Lansbury in the top row of our pantheon of patron saints, and I have paid tribute to the lady on many occasions before - and will do again, no doubt.
Complementing her screen roles/vocal characterisation in Gaslight, The Manchurian Candidate, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Beauty and the Beast and of course Murder She Wrote, Miss Lansbury is THE star of Broadway - Gypsy, Mame, Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music being her triumphs. We love her, and hope her much-anticipated "final" West End stage appearance does indeed take place, so we can finally see the grande dame in the flesh...
Here she is in glittering form, performing her show-stopper Mame at the 1975 Tony awards:
Here, she tackles one of our eternal theme tunes here at Dolores Delargo Towers, Everything's Coming Up Roses:
...and after that, it's time for some gentle exercise:
I'm exhausted! Yet she's 87!
Angela Lansbury on Wikipedia
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Jerry Herman honoured in style
On Sunday 5th December, the 33rd Annual Kennedy Center Honours celebrated, among others the talents and contributions of one of our icons here at Dolores Delargo Towers, none other than composer and lyricist Jerry Herman, the genius behind Hello, Dolly!, La Cage Aux Folles, Mame and Mack and Mabel, among other camp classics.
Speaking of camp - the line-up of stars who turned out (or were wheeled out in some cases!) sounds tremendous!
Our divine mother Angela Lansbury introduced the tribute. Kelsey Grammer (as Zaza) led a chorus of dancing "girls" on We Are What We Are from La Cage.
The triumph of art over nature that is the wonderful Carol Channing then sang Hello, Jerry (Hello, Dolly) with lyrics especially adapted for the occasion.
The sexy Matthew Morrison of Glee (who is apparently not gay - as these pictures prove) performed It's Today from Mame, and two of our favourite showgirls, none other than Christine Baranski and Christine Ebersole, teamed up for Bosom Buddies.
A host of Broadway stars did their turn - Laura Benanti sang the beautiful Time Heals Everything from Mack and Mabel, and returning to Hello Dolly!, Sutton Foster performed Before the Parade Passes By, and Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Bomer duetted on It Only Takes a Moment.
Leading the finale, living legend Chita Rivera sang and danced to I Don't Want to Know (from Dear World) and the tribute concluded with two of Mr Herman's greatest songs, I Am What I Am and The Best of Times.
Now if that isn't a celebration, then I don't know what is!!
The show is not going to be televised in the US until December 28th so there is no footage of this glittering gala available yet - and somehow I doubt it will even get a mention on telly here in the UK. But I'll be looking out for it!
PS Apparently also honoured on the night were Sir Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Merle Haggard and choreographer and director Bill T. Jones.
Kennedy Center Honours 2010
STOP PRESS
Here it is!
Friday, 16 October 2009
That's peachy for some people - some people ain't me!
In the pantheon of great performers in stage musicals, there are always a few names that stand out - Ethel Merman, Chita Rivera, Elaine Stritch, for example. But standing tall over these Broadway belters is the universally adored Angela Lansbury, whose 84th birthday it is today!
Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Terrence McNally, Kander & Ebb - she's worked with them all over the years. And of course, the lady's screen appearances are many and notable, from The Manchurian Candidate, through Bedknobs and Broomsticks to the magnificent Salome Otterborne in Death On The Nile, and en route becoming the most highly-paid actress on TV for her enduring series Murder She Wrote.
Even today the lady is unstoppable - having recently won an Emmy for her performance as Madame Arcati (yes, the real one) in Blithe Spirit, she will star as Madame Armfeldt in the first Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, which is scheduled to open in December 2009. A supreme talent indeed - we idolise this woman!
Angela Lansbury on Wikipedia
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