Big Gay Al

A gathering of the clans took place yesterday - as friends old and new, from far and wide (including Surrey, Essex and France) assembled at one of his favourite haunts The Dog House in Kennington to honour the memory of one of our dearest friends Alistair, who sadly died in February.

Alistair and Madam Arcati were particularly close - they'd been friends long before we even met - but Al touched the lives of many of those present in a number of ways. We'll all miss his cynicism, his crankiness, his laugh, his love of the obscure and the tacky, his fearsome intellect, and his great company.

Here are just two of his fave songs - polar opposites in every way:

June Anderson - London Symphony Orchestra (cond. Leonard Bernstein) - Glitter and Be Gay [Candide, by Bernstein]

Phil Starr (with Maisie Trollette) - The Old Bazaar at Cairo:

RIP, you old curmudgeon. Life's not the same without you.

Sondheim of the Day - West Side Story

Way back in 2009, I posted a tribute to the long-forgotten model-turned-society-hostess Ruth Ford, who hosted a famous theatrical [="gay"] salon at her home in the Dakota Building in New York:

...she hosted parties attended by such luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally and Truman Capote - just imagine a single room that could possibly hold all those queens together!

But most exciting of all, it was in Ruth Ford's apartment that a young Stephen Sondheim was first introduced to Arthur Laurents and, later, to Leonard Bernstein. Together, these three remarkable men came up with one of the best musicals of all time - West Side Story! And it was all down to Miss Ford...

One of the most extolled successes in musical theatre history, this updated version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was made even more popular when Mr Laurents and producer Robert Wise turned it into a blockbuster movie in 1961 - which went on to win 10 Academy Awards; the most ever for a musical film. [Its influence stretches even to the modern era, as Steven Spielberg's just (groan) remade it; I shan't be rushing to see that.]

For young Stephen Sondheim, this was a spectacular debut indeed!

Without further ado, on with the show. It's a familiar and well-trodden plot - but with a plethora of tight-trousered gorgeous (and indelibly camp) boys, pretending to be members of macho street gangs, cavorting in Technicolor, what's not to like..?

West Side Story - Prologue [Russ Tamblyn and the Jets vs George Shakiris and the Sharks]

Of course, its score is timeless (with typically Bernstein staccato notes balanced by Mr Sondheim's clever and complex lyrics), and birthed a number of classics...

Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno and Bette Midler - America

Pet Shop Boys - Somewhere

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Raul Esparza - A Boy Like That/I Have a Love

[NB it was this version, from Lenny Bernstein's studio production of the score (see below) that spawned a famous French & Saunders skit]

Joyce DiDonato - I Feel Pretty

Kiri Te Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras [conductor Leonard Bernstein] - Tonight

Julian Ovenden - Maria [BBC Proms 2015]

It's no wonder, really, that West Side Story is still consistently voted among the best musicals of all time.

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. Yesterday's "Sondheim of the Day" was Company.]

We've hair on our chests, so what we like the best are the nights

l-r: Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden and Adolph Green

BBC Radios 3 and, to a lesser extent, 2 have been going mad lately in celebration of the centenary of the prolific composer Leonard Bernstein; featuring myriad compositions from his repertoire, some great and many - bearing in mind his penchant for modernism, which in orchestral music can be excruciatingly difficult to listen to - not so great.

The culmination of the celebrations was (inevitably) at the BBC Proms, with Prom 57 on Saturday (Lenny's actual birthday) dedicated to his first foray into the genre of musical theatre, On The Town. The film version of the stage production was a notable success, but Mr Bernstein boycotted it when the producers replaced all but three of his original compositions with ones by MGM Studios' "in-house" writer Roger Edens.

But here, by way of a jolly pick-me-up suitable on this Tacky Music Monday (despite the fact that is is a Bank Holiday so we're enjoying another free day off), are two numbers from that film version - the first composed by Leonard Bernstein, and the other by Mr Edens...

Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin - New York, New York

We'll find the romance and danger waiting in it
Beneath the Broadway lights;
But we've hair on our chests
So what we like the best are the nights
Sights! Lights! Nights!

New York, New York, a helluva town.
The Bronx is up, but the Battery's down.
The people ride in a hole in the groun'.
New York, New York, it's a helluva town!

Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett and Vera Ellen - On The Town

We're going on the town, New York,
We're riding on a rocket, we're going to really sock it,
Because tonight's the night.
We're going on the tube,
We're going to raise a riot, the Brooklyn Bridge we'll buy it,
And hit the hype tonight, the highest hype tonight.

East side, west side, rouse the city,
One day, one night, that's the pity.
And we won't look ahead,
We'll let the light of dawn get around,
We're really living, Jack, we're going on the town.

Indeed.

Leonard Bernstein (born Louis Bernstein, 25th August 1918 – 14th October 1990)

Let me entertain you

RIP another hero...

From the BBC:

Arthur Laurents, writer of such classic stage musicals as West Side Story and Gypsy, has died in New York aged 93.

The director and screenwriter died at his Manhattan home from complications of pneumonia, his agent said.

Born in Brooklyn, the attorney's son began in radio and wrote military training films during World War II.

His screen credits include the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, Barbra Streisand romance The Way We Were and 1977 ballet drama The Turning Point.

Laurents won a Tony award in 1968 as author of the book for the musical Hallelujah, Baby!, and another, in 1984, for directing La Cage aux Folles.

He remains best known for writing the books for West Side Story and Gypsy, hit Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.

Over at Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp today, there is more on Mr Laurents - read my blog.

As a little tribute to a great man, here are not one, not two, but three of Broadway's greats performing Let Me Entertain You from Gypsy!

Ann Reinking, Donna McKechnie and Chita Rivera - Let Me Entertain You (from Broadway Sings: The Music of Jule Styne, 1987)

Read the BBC article

A most influential salonniere

“My life has been too exciting, too wonderful, to let anything else, and that includes acting, come first.”

Sometimes you read about someone who has died, aged 98, and you think - "who the hell was she, and why does she deserve an obituary in the New York Times, for heaven's sake?".

However when I read about the death of the actress and Balmain model Ruth Ford, I suddenly realised why this lady was quite so significant. For, following her fantastically unsuccessful film career, Miss Ford (who had been married to Dr Mabuse actor Peter van Eyck, and later Mildred Pierce star Zachary Scott) created what would appear to be one of the campest theatrical "salons" in New York.

In the unlikely setting of her apartment in the (in)famous Dakota Building, she hosted parties attended by such luminaries as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally and Truman Capote - just imagine a single room that could possibly hold all those queens together!

But most exciting of all, it was in Ruth Ford's apartment that a young Stephen Sondheim was first introduced to Arthur Laurents and, later, to Leonard Bernstein. Together, these three remarkable men came up with one of the best musicals of all time - West Side Story! And it was all down to Miss Ford...

West Side Story - I Feel Pretty

West Side Story - Tonight

Ruth Ford obituary

The little girl with the powerful voice

Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 2 tonight is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the musical West Side Story.

Leonard Bernstein's masterpiece, based upon the Shakespeare love story Romeo & Juliet, was a ground-breaking "modern" interpretation, radical in its day and remains an all-time classic. With lyrics by a young Stephen Sondheim, everyone still loves such timeless songs as Tonight Tonight, Maria and America.

On Monday we went to the Mermaid Theatre in Blackfriars to see the BBC live recording. Wow! What an experience. I have not been quite so close to an orchestra before, which was fascinating in itself, as they seemingly effortlessly battled through the incredible complexities of Bernstein's music. A whirl of violin bows, brass, flutes and cymbals.



But the real surprise was the singers. The chorus was fab (the sassy ensemble Capital Voices), and soloists such as Jacinta Whyte and Jon-Paul Hevey were great. But the true stars were gorgeous tenor Michael Xavier, playing Tony, and as Maria the New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra.

Looking about twelve years old, this teeny tiny figure has an incredibly deceptive voice. And when the two leads duetted together on the lovely ballads from the show like Tonight and One Hand, One Heart, the theatre audience was completely stunned by the emotion conveyed. Could such a small person sing so powerfully?

Who would have thought I would suddenly become a Hayley Westenra fan?

Don't miss the show on Radio 2 tonight at 7.30pm, or you can listen again after tonight's broadcast for one week: Friday Night is Music Night page.

You might even hear me cough...

Hayley Westenra on MySpace