I can face a new tomorrow, if I make it past today

Monday again...

It's a blustery day out there and, as we prepare to haul ourselves out into it for another edifying week at work, we need something jolly to cheer our spirits...

...so let's start the countdown to Hallowe'en this week, who better on this Tacky Music Monday to provide a pick-me-up than... Morticia Addams?!

Bebe Neuwirth - Just Around the Corner (from The Addams Family musical)

Death is just around the corner
Waiting patiently to strike.
One unplanned electrocution
That's the kind of end
I can comprehend.

When I'm feeling uninspired
Or I need a little spree
I'm reborn knowing
Death is just around the corner
Coming after me.

Death is just around the corner
Waiting high upon the hill
Someone buried in an avalanche (gasp)
That's the kind of fig
I can really dig.

Marriage often disappoints you.
Not each husband is a gem.
So I'll mourn
Knowing death is just around the corner
Coming after them.

If life were plums
I'll muddle through some.
But when death comes
I hope it's gruesome. (hot-cha)

Some people die from public stoning,
Faulty wiring, faulty zoning,
Cherry pits they didn't know were there.

It could be by a jungle cat
A slippery mat.
A baseball bat.
Perhaps an unsuccessful love affair.

It could be on a speeding train,
It could be underwater.
It could be too much Novocain
Or even by your daughter.

Perhaps a bad mosquito bite.
A title fight.
Religious rite.
My darlings, it might even be tonight.

Death is just around the corner
No one's ever been immune.
Turning off a respirator
With a simple click
Strenuously quick.

I can face a new tomorrow
If I make it past today.
I feel good saying
Death is just around the corner
Simply on its way.

Death is just around the corner
And you have to be enthralled.
For your death is just around the corner
Happy being both the mourned and mourner
Because death is just around the corner
Coming for us all.

Have a good week, dear reader.

I can face a new tomorrow - if I make it past today

Monday again! Sod it.

As we haul ourselves back out into the bleak and bitter air, just to sit and be bleak and bitter in the office, so we need something jolly to cheer our spirits...

...and, with it being Hallowe'en this week, who better to sing for us on this Tacky Music Monday but... Morticia Addams!

Bebe Neuwirth - Just Around the Corner (from The Addams Family musical)

Death is just around the corner
Waiting patiently to strike.
One unplanned electrocution
That's the kind of end
I can comprehend.

When I'm feeling uninspired
Or I need a little spree
I'm reborn knowing
Death is just around the corner
Coming after me.

Death is just around the corner
Waiting high upon the hill
Someone buried in an avalanche (gasp)
That's the kind of fig
I can really dig.

Marriage often disappoints you.
Not each husband is a gem.
So I'll mourn
Knowing death is just around the corner
Coming after them.

If life were plums
I'll muddle through some.
But when death comes
I hope it's gruesome. (hot-cha)

Some people die from public stoning,
Faulty wiring, faulty zoning,
Cherry pits they didn't know were there.

It could be by a jungle cat
A slippery mat.
A baseball bat.
Perhaps an unsuccessful love affair.

It could be on a speeding train,
It could be underwater.
It could be too much Novocain
Or even by your daughter.

Perhaps a bad mosquito bite.
A title fight.
Religious rite.
My darlings, it might even be tonight.

Death is just around the corner
No one's ever been immune.
Turning off a respirator
With a simple click
Strenuously quick.

I can face a new tomorrow
If I make it past today.
I feel good saying
Death is just around the corner
Simply on its way.

Death is just around the corner
And you have to be enthralled.
For your death is just around the corner
Happy being both the mourned and mourner
Because death is just around the corner
Coming for us all.

I'll drink to that!

The challenge delights me

Who would have thought it? Possessor of the most impressive curly hair in showbiz and all-round brassy dame, Miss Bernadette Peters is seventy years old today... Gulp.

A rare visitor to our shores, we would love to see her live, but at the moment, it appears she's somewhat preoccupied - having replaced Bette Midler in the current Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!

One day, we may get to experience a performance such as this...

Bernadette Peters - Sooner or Later

Sooner or later you're gonna be mine
Sooner or later you're gonna be fine
Baby, it's time that you faced it
I always get my man

Sooner or later you're gonna decide
Sooner or later there's nowhere to hide
Baby, it's time, so why waste it in chatter?
Let's settle the matter
Baby, you're mine on a platter
I always get my man

But if you insist, babe
The challenge delights me
The more you resist, babe
The more it excites me
And no one I've kissed, babe
Ever fights me
Again
If you're on my list
It's just a question of when
When I get a yen
Then, baby, amen
I'm counting to ten
And then

I'm gonna love you like nothing you've known
I'm gonna love you, and you all alone
Sooner is better than later, but lover
I'll hover, I'll plan
This time I'm not only getting
I'm holding my man

Many happy returns, Miss Bernadette Peters (born Bernadette Lazzara, 28th February 1948)

Broadway Baby

After the sad news of the death of one of our greatest Patron Saints Miss Elaine Stritch yesterday, it is difficult to muster up a party mood for the looming weekend.

However, we'll give it a try. Let the weekend celebrations begin in the capable hands of the marvellous Miss Candi Staton, swathed in satin, and what could easily be a tribute to the Broadway Belter herself - Nights on Broadway!

Candi Staton - Nights on Broadway

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a good (hot) weekend...

Brassy Bernie

Lawdy.

The very lovely Miss Bernadette Peters, proponent of the brassy musical belter tradition pioneered by Miss Merman and Miss Stritch, is 65 years old!

Here she is, giving it her all on a TV special way back in 1970 - and she's still at it (perhaps not so energetically) today...

Bernadette Peters Show

Bernadette Peters (born Bernadette Lazzara, 28th February 1948)

You already know how magical theatre can be

I must confess I have never watched the Tony Awards (as it's all about Broadway productions, I'm not even sure they show it in the UK). I usually find the back-slapping false-smile, false-tits, false-everything aura of such affairs as the Oscars and the Brits too excruciating to sit through, if truth be told.

However this must be one of the campest awards presentation ceremony opening numbers I have seen in a long time...

Neil Patrick Harris - It's Not Just For Gays Anymore

Neil Patrick Harris - whatever it is you are famous for (apart from being an "A-Gay"), I think I love you!

[Thanks, Lionel]

High flying, adored

[Ricky Martin is the one on the right]

It's finally confirmed...

Producers Hal Luftig and Scott Sanders have cast Michael Cerveris as Juan Perón, Argentine Elena Roger as Evita and Ricky Martin as Che Guevara. This new production, directed by Olivier Award winner Michael Grandage will be the first time Evita hits the [New York] stage in more than 30 years.

The play, originally written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice tells the story of the late Argentine first lady, as told from the perspective of a young Ché Guevara, the story’s narrator. It will debut next spring, 2012 on Broadway.

Read more at Broadway World

Here's Miss Roger with a rip-roaring rendition of the show's Buenos Aires:

Elena Roger - Buenos Aires (from Evita)

Let's hope for a full cast transfer back to London... I'd love to see Ricky in the West End!

Define yourself!

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.”

Whew! A person who is still alive to celebrate!

Happy birthday today to the lovely Harvey Fierstein, one of the gayest of gay men in theatre, rights champion and a personal icon of mine... [I have blogged about him before, of course - read my tribute to the man back in 2009.]

So without further ado, here is the great Broadway Queen, on the eve of taking over the role of "Zaza" in La Cage Aux Folles (a show he wrote!) this year, reminiscing about his life:

Harvey Fierstein - Show People with Paul Wontorek

Harvey Fierstein on Wikipedia

Harvey Fierstein takes over in La Cage

Broadway Baby

Happy 63rd(!) birthday today to the lovely and vivacious Broadway Bombshell Miss Bernadette Peters.

With a myriad of theatrical roles behind her, from (as a child) understudying the original "Dainty June" in Gypsy and playing Liesl in the 1961 stage appearance of Sound of Music, right through to her triumphal concert appearances and her current role as Desiree in the critically acclaimed Menier Chocolate Factory production on Broadway of A Little Night Music (replacing Catherine Zeta-Jones).

This year, Miss Peters continues her lifelong connection with Mr Sondheim (she won awards for her parts in Sunday in the Park with George in 1984 and Into the Woods in 1987, and returned to Gypsy for its revival in 2003, this time playing Mama), joining a new production of Follies that is predicted to transfer from DC to Broadway. It certainly appears that everything that Bernadette Peters turns to gold, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it isn't the "hit of 2011".

With her multi-million selling recordings, TV appearances ranging from the Carol Burnett Show to Will and Grace, and an occasional film career she is indeed one of America's "national treasures", and we on this side of the pond love her to bits too - particularly here in Dolores Delargo Towers!

Here is Miss Peters appearing in her sell-out concert series at the Royal Albert Hall...

Bernadette Peters - Fever

Bernadette Peters official website

Puttin’ on The Ritz

Wow! Just discovered the fact that a production of Terrence McNally's fabulous comedy The Ritz has been revived on Broadway...

A camp classic (and the movie is one of my favourite films), The Ritz is the story of Carmine, a member of a mob family who, on the run from hitmen ordered by his own dying father-in-law, takes refuge in the one place he thinks the killers will never find him - a New York gay bath house!

Inside, the interplay between the characters is one long farcical (and hilarious) romp of innuendo and mistaken identities. The lead gay character is the uber-camp Chris, whose one-liners I still quote today:

• (Bumping into a big butch queen in the lift) "Margaret Dumont, we thought you were dead!"
• "Well, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a queen without a sense of humour. You can die with your secrets, honey!"
• "There will be an orgy in Room 340 in approximately four minutes! Orgy in 340, four minutes!"

But among the eccentric mix of characters in The Ritz , the star of them all has to be that epitome of all dire cabaret acts, Miss Googie Gomez! Played in the movie by the supremely talented Rita Moreno, Googie Gomez is anything but... Her hilarious "tribute" to Cole Porter, her violence when someone thinks she is "tacky drag", her pursuit of Carmine when she thinks he is a music producer - all priceless!



And so Terrence McNally's play returns to the stage, and hope one day the producers will have the good sense to bring it over here - I will be first in the queue for tickets!

Read all about the Broadway production at Studio 54

Footnote: And for any of you bizarre people out there who have never even seen The Ritz there is the perfect opportunity coming up, as the DVD is (finally) released in the US in January! No sign of a UK release as yet, but I wait with bated breath...

Order your copy from Amazon