Not for just a day, but always

Oh, dammit. Back to reality...

Never mind, eh? We have a genuine treat to lift our spirits - for yesterday was the (91st) birthday of Our Patron Saint of Bugle-Beads, Mis Mitzi Gaynor!

On this Tacky Music Monday, here she is with a positive cavalcade of safety gays!

Mitzi Gaynor - Always

As I said way back in 2013: "I am certain that Irving Berlin never envisioned his ultimate torch song would receive this kind of treatment - trust Mitzi!"

Many happy returns, Mitzi Gaynor (born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber, 4th September 1931)

Puttin' On the Ritz?

As always, Billy Porter had the best "look" of them all.

We never bother to watch the Oscars here at Dolores Delargo Towers. It's broadcast in the middle of the night in the UK, for one thing, and for another - it's just a boring load of pretentious speeches, frocks, and inevitably wrong nominees and winners. Apart from winning Best New Song for the unmemorable new one Dame Elton and Bernie Taupin wrote for the film, Rocketman didn't even receive a nomination for Best Picture nor Best Actor for Taron Egerton, which is criminal (especially considering the lashings of accolades that were heaped upon Bohemian Rhapsody last year)!

I digress. We may still be on holiday this week, but it is a Tacky Music Monday - so let's get on with the show, in the company of today's birthday boy the late, great Peter Allen, together with the very lovely Bernadette Peters.

Now this is what I call an Oscars ceremony performance!

Bernadette Peters and Peter Allen - Salute to Irving Berlin [1983 Academy Awards]

This year's ceremony featured homophobic cunt Eminem. Say no more.

Have a good week, peeps!

An atmosphere that simply reeks of class

This is the last but one Tacky Music Monday before the dreaded festering season is upon us, so I thought I'd give myself a present...

To cheer our spirits as we head to work again with a heavy heart, we have the unbeatable combination of our Italian Patron Saints Raffaella Carra and Mina Mazzini, with a bevy of safety gays, chiffon-clad girls, and all to the sound of Irving Berlin - it's Top Hat!

Raffaella and Mina - Top Hat, White Tie and Tails

Have a good week, peeps!

I've got a great big amount saved up in my love account

We finally decided to get around to seeing the multi-award-winning musical Top Hat last night, before it closes this weekend. We were most definitely not disappointed!

Based (of course) on the classic Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie from 1935 (and everyone should know how much we adore them!), the stage production pulled out all the stops to re-create the magical, impossibly luxurious Art Deco world of those uplifting RKO musicals of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The sets were beautiful, the costumes sumptuous and the choreography as close to the Hermes Pan original as humanly possible.



Of course, as is to be expected of the "screwball comedies" of that era, the plot was as flimsy as can be - boy meets girl; mistaken identity means boy loses girl; boy's buffoonish sidekick (Clive Hayward as the bumbling "Horace Hardwick"), his battleaxe wife (the excellent Vivien Parry as "Madge", one of the show's best characters), the "comedy Italian" ("Alberto Beddini", played with gusto by Russell Leighton Dixon) and the wily butler (the dry-as-dust Stephen Boswell as "Bates") provide a humorous foil to the story; and all ends happily ever after.

The jokes were totally corny (although some one-liners were hilariously delivered) and no-one could ever expect anything as complicated as "character development". But who the hell needs those when what you want is to be swept away in the glittering visual spectacle of it all?



Our leads Gavin Lee (as "Jerry Travers") and Broadway's own Kristen Beth Williams (as "Dale Tremont") were positively faultless as they swept and swooshed and tapped their way through some of the best dance numbers of all time - the songbook of the maestro Irving Berlin.

All the great man's classics were here - Dancing Cheek to Cheek, Let's Face The Music And Dance, Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain)?, I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket and of course Top Hat, White Tie and Tails - and each was executed with a breathtaking show of dance genius.



The comic numbers (Dale's "vamp number" Wild About You, Horace and Madge's bitchy and bittersweet Outside Of That, I Love You and Beddini's Latins Know How being singular highlights) provided a fab contrast to the glitter, and the ensemble pieces (The Piccolino, the Venice ball and the hotel lobby scenes in particular) simply filled the stage with chiffon, exquisite tailoring and tight boys' buns. We like that.



One of the most spectacular musicals we've seen in ages, Top Hat was simply marvellous!

This show won three Laurence Olivier awards including Best New Musical, and the Evening Standard "Best Night Out" award. I cannot understand why on earth it has decided to close early, but yet again, maybe the typical West End audience is more interested in "jukebox musical" pop fluff and "star vehicles" than classy Hollywood glamour.

Their loss.

Top Hat the musical (trailer)

Top Hat closes in the Aldwych Theatre in the West End tomorrow (26th October 2013), but will embark on a nationwide tour thereafter.

I'm so pleased we got to see it...

Heaven, I'm in heaven

BBC 2 seems to be having a bit of a "Fred and Ginger fest" today, bringing back the traditional idea of showing old classic black'n'white musicals in the afternoon (as they always used to when I was younger).

I am in the mood for the music of Irving Berlin and some beautifully-executed Art Deco dance scenarios (when am I not?), so without further ado let us indulge ourselves in the elegance of Let's Face the Music and Dance:

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers - Let's Face the Music and Dance

And here, from today's matinee Carefree is their wonderful "hypnotic dance" to Change Partners:

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers - Change Partners

How life should be.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

When the things you've planned need a helping hand

Still creaking with this frozen shoulder, I greet another week with a groan. I hope either a) the drugs finally shift it soon, or b) the doctor can recommend a good physio... Hey ho.

To lighten the day somewhat, here's a genuine Tacky Music Monday treat - courtesy of our eternal favourite Patron Saint Miss Mitzi Gaynor - who blows out 82 candles on her cake on Wednesday!

Mitzi Gaynor - Always

Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But always.

I am certain that Irving Berlin never envisioned his ultimate torch song would receive this kind of treatment.

Trust Mitzi!

Have a great week, peeps.

Queen of Tap

In memory of Miss Ann Miller, who died eight years ago today, I have created her a brand new "exhibit" in the Dolores Delargo Towers - Museum of Camp.

Over here I feel like sharing some more of my favourite performances of hers...

Ann Miller - Shakin' the Blues Away (Easter Parade)

A magnificent 1989 performance of 42nd Street:

Ann Miller - 42nd Street

Her last stage appearance, aged 75, in Follies (1998):

Ann Miller - I'm Still Here

And finally - I really can't believe I have never featured this, possibly my favourite piece of kitsch TV EVER, the "Love Boat Follies" (in which she does diva battle with Ethel Merman, Della Reese and Carol Channing!)...

Love Boat Follies

Magnificently camp!

RIP, Miss Miller.

Let's face the music

Twenty years ago today Irving Berlin, that astounding genius of music, died at the ripe old age of 101. During his lifetime he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, many of which are absolute standards today - including Alexander's Ragtime Band, Cheek to Cheek, I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, Let's Face The Music and Dance, There's No Business Like Show Business, What'll I do?, Heat Wave, Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) and even God Bless America.

Mr Berlin (born Israel Baline, a Russian Jewish refugee) also wrote classic musicals like Annie Get Your Gun, Call Me Madam, Holiday Inn, Top Hat, Puttin' On The Ritz, White Christmas and Easter Parade, worked with Ziegfield, Paul Whiteman, Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Judy Garland, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Moss Hart and Jerome Kern, and was commissioned by the US government to produce patriotic numbers during WW2. Whew!

Even George Gershwin acknowledged the influence of the great man thus: "Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbour. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert. But apart from his genuine talent for song-writing, Irving Berlin has had a greater influence upon American music than any other one man."

Praise indeed...

Fred Astaire - Top Hat, White Tie and Tails

Ethel Merman at The Boston Pops - There's No Business Like Show Business

Mitzi Gaynor - What'll I Do?

Frank Sinatra - tribute to Irving Berlin (100th birthday celebration)

Irving Berlin (11th May 1888 – 22nd September 1989)