She's practically perfect, in every way!
Yes, the venerable and venerated Dame Julie Andrews blows out 90 candles on her cake today, and the tributes are rolling in - not least this amusing one in The Guardian. Who knew she used to drive around Los Angeles with a “Mary Poppins Was a Junkie” bumper sticker on her car?!
But I digress... On with the show!
Many, many happy returns, Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (born 1st October 1935)
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:
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...
...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...
The UK is being hit by a storm called Bert that takes five sugars in its tea, smokes indoors and wears a flat cap without a hint of irony.
Storm Bert will arrive in working-class areas of Scotland and the North tomorrow, making a terrible mess and tracking crap all over your carpet, but will do so with such no-nonsense bluntness that you will be powerless to say anything.
Eleanor Shaw of Lancaster said: “Oh dear, not Bert. I fear he’s going to be rather plain-speakingly destructive.
“We may be in the North but we own a £535,000 detached home in its own grounds, so we rather got on with Storm Fergus last year. And we actually invited Storm Henk to come back in summer.
“But Bert sounds like he’ll do terrible damage to our Edwardian frontage and I’ll just have to laugh it off because I don’t want to seem a snob. ‘Oh Bert, you’re a force of nature!’ I’ll guffaw while inwardly seething.”
Meteorologist Dr Helen Archer said: “I’m afraid I can confirm that Bert will be a gruff storm with no time for niceties who will not even notice that he has flattened your imported fuchsias and blown the French windows right through.
“However after Bert it’s Conall. Irish gentleman, lovely lilt to the voice you’ll hear on the wind, reminds you of 'Normal People'. Wear your nice maxi-dress.”
Of course.
And we know a song about 'im, don't we, kiddy-winkies..?
[The "real" story]
As introductions to the magnificent repertoire of Stephen Sondheim go, I must admit that Side By Side By Sondheim is possibly the finest. As I mentioned way back in chapter #1 of this rambling (more than a) week-long series of tributes to The Maestro, it was through listening to Madam Acarti's double CD of said classic revue - the brainchild of That Was The Week That Was producer Ned Sherrin, in response to a commission from none other than Dame Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth back in 1976 - that I gathered an understanding, and a nuanced appreciation, of the work of a true genius in the world of musical theatre. Basically, before that point I knew the song Send in the Clowns and the "hits" from West Side Story, and that was just about it.
Gathering the brilliantly talented combo of Sondheimites Julia McKenzie, Millicent Martin and David Kernan together, with connecting narration from Mr Sherrin himself, the revue covers everything from the popular and the well-known, to more obscure and rare numbers by The Maestro.
From Company there's the eponymous number Company, The Little Things You Do Together, Another Hundred People, (Not) Getting Married Today, Barcelona, You Could Drive a Person Crazy and Side By Side By Side. From Follies, there's Bring on the Girls, Ah, Paree!, Buddy's Blues, Broadway Baby, Losing My Mind, [David Kernan's "gay" version of] Could I Leave You? and I'm Still Here. From Gypsy, If Momma Was Married and You Gotta Get a Gimmick; and from West Side Story, A Boy Like That/ I Have a Love.
Then there's the less well-known ones - some of which have become firm favourites here at Dolores Delargo Towers, such as this one from the film The Seven Percent Solution [originally sung by our Patron Saint Régine; here done rather differently]:
Even more obscure, this one came from a weird-sounding US television show called Evening Primrose, about drop-outs who live in a department store [very 1967!]:
This fantabulosa number is from Do I Hear a Waltz?, with music by Richard Rodgers:
The next two were dropped from (respectively) Company, and from Follies:
From Anyone Can Whistle, the title song and this:
And, from a show that hasn't played in London since 2003, Pacific Overtures, this:
Leaving the best to last, however - also included in the melange was another particular favorite of ours, a song that was written for yet another revue [bizarrely based on Mad Magazine; a collaboration with Richard Rodgers' daughter Mary] - here as part two of a faboo skit by Kit and the Widow [Part one being just too good not to feature!]:
We went to se a revival of the show at "the Venue" (now The Leicester Square Theatre) - gosh! - fourteen years ago, which we thought was faboo, if not a patch on the original (what could be?)
Read more about Side by Side by Sondheim at Sondheim.com
In 1992, combined pressures from Cameron Mackintosh and Julia McKenzie persuaded Mr Sondheim to do a "updated version" of the 1976 classic.
Titled Putting It Together, it actually only featured four songs from Side by Side (Marry Me a Little, You Could Drive a Person Crazy - this time in first person "I" - (Not) Getting Married Today and Could I Leave You?). From A Little Night Music it featured Every Day a Little Death (with another song dropped from most performances of that show My Husband the Pig), Now, Night Waltzes, Country House, Bang and The Miller's Son; from Company, Have I Got a Girl for You, Sorry-Grateful and Being Alive; Pretty Women and Sweet Polly Plunkett from Sweeney Todd; Hello Little Girl from Into The Woods; and The Gun Song from Assassins.
Also woven into the mix were songs from a Sondheim show we've never been to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, including my fave:
From another Sondheim show we've never seen Sunday in the Park with George, the number that inspired the revue's title...
...and two from Dick Tracy:
More about Putting It Together
The revue also featured numbers from a couple of productions that we did actually go and see...
Merrily We Roll Along is a very clever conceit - based as it is on a satirical play from the Depression era by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the show's narrative runs entirely in reverse; from the opening scenes of embittered individuals, forcibly and callously cast aside by the lead character (and former friend) Franklin Shepard in his quest for fortune and success, to the closing ensemble numbers where the group are all young and idealistic and very much a "gang" of like-minded characters just setting out on their uncertain destinies.
We and our own "gang" went to see it in its Olivier-award-winning revival by Sondheimite Maria Friedman at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2013.
It is a phenomenal show, with a clutch of excellent songs, such as these...
And then, there's this - a genuinely heart-wrenching number if ever there was one!
[Another one of Sondheim's that's become a bit of a "standard" in its own right, and has been recorded by Bernadette Peters, Judy Collins, La Streisand, Mandy Patinkin, Cleo Laine and even Jane McDonald]Read a rather good article about the show by arts professor Laurence Maslon, or else Wikipedia
And the other show?
It's probably more famous for this number than anything...
...it's a musical "freely adapted from" the writings of the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, involving the God of Wine Dionysus, Hades and the resurrected spirits of George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare - The Frogs. Again, only Stephen Sondheim could have possibly come up with this idea!
We caught it at its first UK production since the 1990s (and its West End première; bearing in mind this was a show that begain its life - in a swimming pool in Yale University with Meryl Streep among its cast - in 1974) at the bijou Jermyn Street Theatre in 2017. Ever since then, "Brek-kek-kek-kek" has become a bit of mantra for us - it made such an impression! Here's some grainy footage of the faboo Nathan Lane in (I believe) his own revised production in 2004:
All about The Frogs at Music Theatre International
And finally...
...the best tribute a Maestro could expect:
RIP, Stephen Joshua Sondheim (22nd March 1930 – 26th November 2021)
[The final one of a series of tributes I have posted to Mr Sondheim this week.]
Previous "Sondheim of the Day" entries:
Another day, another new addition to Fabulon, the "Valhalla of the Stars" - the multi-talented Bea Lillie protégé, composer, lyricist and playwright Mr Leslie Bricusse.
Most famous for his long professional partnership with fellow "triple threat" Anthony Newley, the mass of "standards" in the great man's repertoire include Nina Simone's Feeling Good [a version of which I posted just the other day], What Kind of Fool Am I?, The Joker [used later as the theme song for Kath & Kim], The Candy Man and Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, London Is London, A Wonderful Day Like Today, Talk to the Animals, Who Can I Turn To?...
...and these!
...and our "Gay Pride March" anthem, to boot!
RIP, Leslie Bricusse OBE (29th January 1931 – 19th October 2021)
Yes - it was my turn today to go and get my jab!
The clinic was nowhere near as exotic as this, however...
...unfortunately.
Today would have marked the centenary of Walter Matthau, and also the 90th birthday of Richard Harris. Former President Jimmy Carter (still with us) blows 96 candles out (if he has the puff), and eminent former ITN newsreader Sandy Gall is also having a "knees-up" at 93; other celebrants in the usual hotch-potch include George Peppard, Stanley Holloway, Randy Quaid, Tom Bosley, André Rieu, Brie Larson, Sandy Gall, Youssou N'Dour, Laurence Harvey, Earl Slick, Donny Hathaway, Keith Duffy, Harry Hill, Paul Dukas, Theresa May, Stella Stevens and King Henry III...
...and our Patron Saint of Niceness, Dame Julie Andrews (who is 85 today)!
By way of a celebration, how about a lovely medley of Kurt Weill songs sung by the Great Dame herself, with Andre Previn tinkling away at the ivories?
My ship has sails that are made of silk
The decks are trimmed with gold
And of jam and spice
There's a paradise
In the hold
My ship's aglow with a million pearls
And rubies fill each bin
The sun sits high
In a sapphire sky
When my ship comes in
I can wait the years
Till it appears
One fine day one spring
But the pearls and such
They won't mean much
If there's missing just one thing
I do not care if that day arrives
That dream need never be
If the ship I sing
Doesn't also bring
My own true love to me
If the ship I sing
Doesn't also bring
My own true love to me
That'll do nicely.
Many happy returns, Dame Julie Andrews DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells, 1st October 1935)
"...involving a bullwhip, trapeze, flaming hoops, and bizarre circus costumes. It should be deliciously decadent - Andrews even performs a few circus stunts - but like the rest of the film it somehow falls short of the mark, and is more strange than compelling."
