Don't wait until wrinkles and lines pop out all over my brow, show me now!

Friday Night really was Music Night this week, as we braved the elements and trolled off to the imperious environs of Alexandra Palace for BBC Radio 3's Julie Andrews at 90: A Celebration concert. Over the years, we have been fortunate to get to see loads of these recordings of the world's longest-running live orchestral music radio programme, and they're always of the highest quality.

This was no exception.

Core to the whole thing was the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted as ever by Richard Balcombe - they are one of the finest orchestras of their kind and, keeping up the tradition of BBC's historic involvement with Ally Pally, it's been announced that they're now the first "associate orchestra" based at the venue. It's always fascinating to watch an orchestra at work, and this lot worked like clockwork.

Our singers, too, were a top-notch trio - Katie Birtill, Kelly Mathieson and Graham Bickley - veterans of the West End stage and as orchestral soloists, all. Our host was the mellifluous Radio 3 veteran presenter Petroc Trelawny [it's always good to see a "national treasure" in the flesh for the first time].

And of the show itself? We had a cornucopia of music and songs from just about everything Dame Julie was ever involved in - including My Fair Lady, The Boyfriend, The King & I, Star!, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Victor, Victoria and - it goes without saying - The Sound Of Music.

Oh, how we loved it! Indeed, the hills were alive with the sound of her music (well, Muswell Hill, anyway)! No videos are available of the evening itself (naturally), but here are two brief snippets I managed to grab from their rehearsals:

However, let's finish up with a song that was brilliantly done by Miss Mathieson on Friday, and one that featured in two consecutive nights of musical entertainment this weekend:

Julie Andrews - Show Me [My Fair Lady]

Don't talk of stars burning above; If you're in love,
Show me!

Tell me no dreams
Filled with desire. If you're on fire,
Show me!

Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don't talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who's ever been in love'll tell you that
This is no time for a chat!

Haven't your lips
Longed for my touch? Don't say how much,
Show me! Show me!

Don't talk of love lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow. Show me now!

Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Don't waste my time, Show me!

Don't talk of June, Don't talk of fall!
Don't talk at all! Show me!

Never do I ever want to hear another word.
There isn't one I haven't heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Say one more word and I'll scream!

Haven't your arms hungered for mine?
Please don't "expl'ine," Show me! Show me!

Don't wait until wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!

Love it...

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...and speaking of two consecutive nights of musical entertainment - our busy weekend continued on Saturday as we settled down in front of the telly, Union Jack flags in hand, to watch The Last Night of the Proms..!

More on that tomorrow, no doubt...

So watch me fly, we all know I can do it!

It's been a hectic last weekend of freedom, dear reader! Yesterday, John-John, Hils, Crog and I traversed the wilds of the East End of London (to the Excel London exhibition complex) for the Tutankhamun Immersive Experience [more on that later, no doubt], followed by a jaunt across the Thames on the "IFS Cloud" Cable Car to the O2 Millennium Dome for a bit of shopping and lunch in the Wetherspoons located therein, then hiked from Canary Wharf all the way through Limehouse to Wapping along the Thames Path. Our original destination was none other than Serena McKellen's pub The Grapes, but there were no tables free so we ended up at the historic Prospect of Whitby - London's oldest riverside inn - to finish off the day with a few much-needed drinks.

Today, the weather having been beautiful all day, was spent in the garden - my last full day out there until after our trip to Spain next week - doing a last few important potting-on jobs (including hoiking a mature hydrangea into an enormous new pot), while The Madam tackled the much-needed chore of sorting out the neglected, overgrown and tatty patch of clay that laughingly passes for the front garden, which now has several clumps of Geranium × oxonianum "Wargrave Pink" (that was way too rampant to live any longer in a planter) given free rein to do battle with the weeds. It will most likely win the battle.

But it was, of course, the saintly not-yet-a-Dame-for-some-reason Elaine Paige who kicked the weekend off - or at least it was the star-studded concert in her honour, BBC Radio 2 Celebrates Elaine Paige we went to see at the London Palladium on Friday!

Hosted by DJ and presenter Zoe Ball, it promised to be a golden celebration of the great lady's 60 years in showbiz - and her status as a "national treasure" was confirmed by the fact this illustrious and huge theatre was completely sold-out. It certainly was a hell of a tribute!

Among the array of performers were the prime of West End and Broadway talent, including Sharon D. Clarke, Mazz Murray [who was superb!], the very gorgeous Julian Ovenden, Clive Rowe, Charlie Stemp, Summer Strallen, Preeya Kalidas, Samantha Barks and Lucy St. Louis, as well as members of one of Elaine's chosen charities Mountview drama school choir, and each in turn did a great job of presenting highlights from the shows that made Elaine's career - from her early appearances in Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease and Billy, as well as her triumphs Evita, Cats, Chess, Anything Goes, Piaf, Sunset Boulevard, The King & I, Sweeney Todd, The Drowsy Chaperone and Follies. As ever, the stalwart BBC Concert Orchestra (conducted by Richard Balcombe) and one of the Beeb's go-to choirs Capital Voices did stirling work keeping the whole thing together.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable and classy evening, and our "First Lady of British Musical Theatre" agreed - for there she was in all her diminutive, twinkly glory, in (as is fitting) the Royal Box!

Without further ado, let's let the lady herself provide some suitable "Sunday Music":

Elaine Paige - Don't Cry for Me Argentina (from Evita)

Elaine Paige - Memory (from Cats)

Elaine Paige - As If We Never Said Goodbye (from Sunset Boulevard

Magnificent!

The Most Wonderful Time

[click to embiggen]

Even on the coldest day since January, there are things that warm the cockles of the heart...

...and so it was, on Friday evening, that Madam Arcati and I shivered our way to the quirky Milton Court at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, part of the Barbican Centre complex in the City of London - for a concert by one of our favourite live artists Clare Teal, together with The BBC Singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra [not The BBC Big Band as I previously said]. It was definitely worth it!

The venue itself might only have been built in 2015, yet it's been done in a retro-Festival-of-Britain-meets-Grand Budapest Hotel style. Apart from the dead giveaway that (like every new building in the City) the outside of the building is just acres of glass, we genuinely felt like we had stepped back in time.

Speaking of "stepping back in time", the show was itself themed as Songs from the Shows, and we certainly got a gamut of those! The BBC Singers - only very recently saved from being disbanded as part of the BBC's cost-cutting drive - are, as Miss Teal described in her intro, "able to put their hand to anything". Indeed, in their almost one-hundred-year history, they've covered everything from The Last Night of the Proms to Schoenberg and Tippett, from Hildegard of Bingen to Pet Shop Boys, from Monteverdi to Laura Mvula. And so it was no surprise that they took this evening's programme of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, Cole Porter, Bernstein, Coward and Irving Berlin (as well as some complicated jazz arrangements by Alexander L'Estrange of Christmas standards) in their stride. They are simply joyful as a combo, but they have some truly talented soloists among their number, too (shame I didn't catch their names) [UPDATE 20th December: now it's been broadcast, I am able to fill in the blanks and give credit where credit's due] - the tenors on Some Enchanted Evening [Jamie W. Hall] and Finishing the Hat [Tom Raskin], the mezzo-soprano on I Feel Pretty [Emma Tring] and the soprano on If Love Were All [Clare Lloyd Griffiths] were all stunning.

A lesser star than Clare Teal might have felt a bit outnumbered - but she is a truly generous lead singer as well as participant in an ensemble of this calibre, and, despite conductor Owain Parks and the BBC sound department's best attempts to drown her out [her mike was definitely set too low at times], she was on top form! [Considering that it was dear old Auntie Beeb who summarily cancelled her popular Sunday Night Radio 2 show - much to her (and our) dismay - it was a surprise she agreed to record this for them at all! It is due to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 however, so maybe Miss Teal gets on better with their management?]

Many of the classic numbers for which she is renowned were here - Hello Young Lovers, It Might as Well Be Spring, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, I Got the Sun in the Mornin' (and the Moon at Night), and this one:

Clare Teal with the Halle Orchestra - Always True to You in My Fashion

A magnificent evening's entertainment, indeed!

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STOP PRESS: The show is now available on BBC Sounds!