Nothing's gained when there's nothing tried - say "Yes"

Spring in a pot!

It's the Vernal Equinox today, dear reader - and it certainly feels like the so-called "First Day of Spring"! Everything's either in bloom or bursting into growth; we've even been to the garden centre (my first visit of 2022), and bought some new delights for the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers...

We also have not one, not two, but three birthdays to celebrate among the doyens of "our kind of music". First up, someone I didn't even realise was still alive - Mr John Kander, who blew out 95 candles on his cake on Friday! With the late Fred Ebb, he wrote some of the greats of musical theatre - not least Cabaret and Chicago, two personal favourites - and, of course, their close friend and collaborator Miss Liza Minnelli sang just about everything they ever wrote. Like this one:

Liza Minnelli - Yes [Liza with a Z]

Tuesday is also a memorable day every year for the fact that two further musical theatre legends were born, Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber [who's a bit of a "Marmite" composer, but I do like his Sunset Boulevard]...

Glenn Close - As If We Never Said Goodbye [Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Royal Albert Hall Celebration]

...and the late, great Stephen Sondheim! [Read the finale to my week of tribute posts to the great man on his death last year; it has an index of all the previous ones.]

BBC Proms 2010 - Sondheim at 80 - Sunday [Sunday In The Park with George]

Sunday music, indeed...

How can they see with sequins in their eyes?

Fredd Ebb and Joel Grey

Ah well, another (rather good) weekend crashes to a close and we reluctantly crawl back to work for another week of unbridled joy.

Never mind, on this Tacky Music Monday, and by way of a tribute to the late, great Fred Ebb (who would have been 85 today), here's a rather cheery version of the song that gave this very blog its name - Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle (from one of my most beloved musicals, Kander & Ebb's Chicago), starring the very lovely Joel Grey and our fuzzy-felt faves The Muppets!

Joel Grey on The Muppet Show - Razzle Dazzle

Have a good week, dear reader!

Fred Ebb at the Songwriters Hall of Fame

A little fantasy will not fail

So summer is officially over. It's really miserable weather. All the events we are planning from now on will most likely be mainly indoors. It's a Monday again. Ho hum.

It's not all gloomy, however! For your delectation on this Tacky Music Monday, Miss Chita Rivera provides the most appropriate pick-me-up. These boys are in prison for heaven's sake, and they are tap-dancing - why shouldn't we?!!

Chita Rivera - Where You Are (from Kiss of the Spiderwoman; Tony Awards 1993)

Where You Are

When you feel you've gone to hell in a hand basket
And the world in which you dwell's no paradise...

I've some counsel I can give
You need but ask it
I'm so very glad to share this good advice
You've got to learn how not to be
Where you are.

The more you face reality, the more you scar
So close your eyes and you'll become a movie star
Why must you stay where you are?
You've got to learn how not to see
What you've seen.

The slice of hell you call your life
Is harsh and mean
So why not lie beside me on a movie screen
Why must you see what you've seen?

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC!

Come up here, play with me, play with me!
You've got to learn how not to do
What you've done
The pistol shot can't kill if you unload the gun
So build a place where you're the shah
And we'll embrace in that Shangri-La
If you run away, some matinee
From where you are.

You've got to learn how not to be
Where you are
The more you face reality, the more you scar
So close your eyes and you'll become a movie star
Why must you stay where you are?

So why not lie beside me on a movie screen
Why must you see what you've seen?

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC.

Come up here, play with me, play with me!

You've got to learn how not to do
What you've done
The pistol shot can't kill if you unload the gun

So build a place where you're the shah
And we'll embrace in that Shangri-La
If you run away, some matinee
From where you are

And if you find that you land in jail
A little fantasy will not fail
It's just as simple as ABC
Come up here, play with me, play with me!

Turn off the lights and turn on your mind
And I can promise you you will find
You will like my plan, my sweetest fan,
My leading man
Anywhere you are!

Kiss of the Spider Woman - the musical

You have to understand the way I am, Mein Herr

We went along to see the West End version of Cabaret last night, with its new cast including Julian Clary as Emcee - and what a stunning show!

Everyone should know the story, not least from the classic film version with Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey and Michael York. But Bill Kenwright's production at the Lyric takes the story back to its original, darker tale of doomed decadence in the rise to supremacy of the Nazis.

Mr Clary may not be many people's first choice to portray the sleazy and bitter "face" of the underbelly of pre-war Berlin nightclub life - known as he is for his slightly precious and undemonstrative style of humour. But he rose to the challenge admirably, together with the rest of the bawdy ensemble at the "Kit Kat Club". His version of Money, Money in particular was a superb tour de force!

Our Sally Bowles for this performance was understudy Rebecca Bainbridge, who was marvellous in the role. She captured the essence of Sally: a middle-class good-time girl gone bad, trapped in a world where pleasure is everything, oblivious to the fact that the whole thing is about to crash horribly around her - belting out cracked torch songs like Maybe This Time and of course Cabaret in defiance of the fact she, and all the others, are living on borrowed time.

The staging was great, with suitably sleazy touches - a lot of nudity (male and female), whole scenes performed entirely on or in beds, and cast members writhing about on ladders and scaffolding. And the raucus showstoppers Two Ladies, Don't Tell Mama and Mein Herr were all spectacular.



As time progresses and Nazism begins to take over, so the central stories that make up this brilliant show - not just Sally and Clifford's tangled relationship, but the love affair between landlady Fraulein Schneider and Jewish Herr Schultz, and the slow rise of what began as minor characters Ernst Ludwig and Fraulein Kost - get darker and darker, and you soon realise that in this fairytale there will be no happy endings...

We've been to a lot of West End shows in our time, but this is the first time I have ever witnessed total stunned silence as the curtain falls at the end - absolutely gob-smacking.

To understand exactly why, you have to go and see it. Altogether this is an excellent show, and highly recommended...

Cabaret reviewed in the Daily Telegraph