Arise...

Dame Maureen Lipman, Sir Hercule Poirot David Suchet, Dame Mary Berry, and Companion of Honour Sir Paul Smith - among 1,495 people who received an award in the (delayed) HM The Queen's Birthday Honours List announced yesterday.

Joining them in this esteemed list - which includes hundreds of awards in special recognition of the work done by people in light of the COVID-19 epidemic - are Woman in Black author Dame Susan Hill, Sir Tommy Steele, Sir Phil Redmond and Sir Brendan Foster; Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) Lorraine Kelly, Joan Armatrading, Professor Brian Cox, Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer, actor Adrian Lester and gay rugby player Gareth Thomas; Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) Jeff Lynne, Tony Hatch and Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo; and Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) Mica Paris, Dizzee Rascal, Dr Hilary Jones, fitness coaches Joe Wicks and Mr Motivator, vocal coach Carrie Grant and footballer Marcus Rashford. National treasure Sir David Attenborough was awarded one of the highest orders in the land, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.

Congratulations, one and all!

Now, how about a faboo song from one of the worthy recipients..?

Joan Armatrading - Me Myself I

To reach ... the unreachable stars

What do all of these fabulous and talented people have in common?



Kirsty Young, Sheila Hancock, Ronnie Corbett, Maureen Lipman, Paul Gambaccini, Julian Lloyd-Webber, Kerry Ellis, Courtney Pine, Ann Widdicombe, James Pearson, Matt Lucas and Alfie Boe were all on stage at The Mermaid Theatre last night! John-John and I knew we were in for a treat at the live recording of the world's longest-running orchestral live music programme on radio Friday Night Is Music Night, as it hosted a celebration of another BBC gem and the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio, Desert Island Discs - but nothing quite prepared us for this cavalcade of stars...

In addition to the esteemed coterie of famous names above (all in the audience waiting their turn to take the stage), we also spotted Nicholas Parsons two rows away, and in front of him Celia Imrie. We were sat next to Jo Brand, for heaven's sake!



I bumped into Alan Yentob while outside having a fag, and there were many more familiar faces dotted around that I couldn't name (but not Ryan Giggs, surprisingly). But enough about the audience - on with the show!

The BBC Concert Orchestra opened with the famous Desert Island Discs theme tune The Sleepy Lagoon by Eric Coates (and they provided the magnificent music behind all the performances of the evening). Kirsty Young was mistress of ceremonies, and gave us a little insight into the show's long and esteemed history from its beginnings in 1942, and how it felt for her to be at its helm today, in the shadow of its founder and presenter the late Roy Plumley (and his successors Michael Parkinson and Sue Lawley).

Eric Coates plays Eric Coates - Sleepy Lagoon

Kerry Ellis sang (brilliantly, I might add) one of the "top 5" requested songs by Desert Island Discs guests over the years, Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, and later returned to perform Rock-a-Bye My Baby (the former made famous by Liza, the latter by mum Judy).

Sheila Hancock reminisced about having been a guest twice (very rare for the programme) and how furious her late husband John Thaw was as she was asked to go on the show before him - but they shared a favourite tune in Elgar's Cello Concerto, which was then superbly played by Mr Lloyd-Webber. It's one of my favourite pieces, too. I could hardly breathe!

Julian Lloyd-Webber - Elgar - Cello Concerto

Maureen Lipman, after a few anecdotes about her time as a guest, sang two songs from her repertoire of Joyce Grenfell songs, Three Brothers and Stately As A Galleon. Paul Gambaccini introduced a song that reminds him of his home city New York, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, masterfully played by musical director at Ronnie Scott's Club James Pearson. Ann Widdicombe came on stage as (bizarrely) the only guest ever to choose a sound effect as one of her discs - the sound of hippos calling to each other in the African bush...

Amazingly (and only the BBC would dare to do this), "Doris Karloff" was followed by a brilliant live appearance by the maestro of the modern jazz saxophone Courtney Pine, who exploded into the most incredible high-speed, high-energy version of Anita Baker's Sweet Love, which had the audience applauding the roof off!

Ronnie Corbett was hilarious - as always - with his remarkable anecdotes and was deliciously flirtatious with Miss Young, as he proceeded to sing(!) Madam I Love Your Crepe Suzette (from Du Barry Was a Lady) as a serenade. It was a delight to see such a "national treasure" (in Miss Young's words) live on stage!

After another of the most-selected musical choices on Desert Island Discs, John Barry's superb theme from Schindler's List, the show wound to its conclusion with more surprises! We were expecting our neighbour Jo Brand to appear (as was advertised), but it seems she left at half time. Our final act was instead the lovely Matt Lucas, singing(!) Lullaby Of Broadway, and then duetting with none other than the superbly talented tenor Mr Alfie Boe (who is apparently a close friend of Mr Lucas) on The Impossible Dream.

A fitting end to a wonderful evening!

Friday Night Is Music Night

Yorkshire carrying-on

We went with my sister and History Boy to see JB Priestley's When We Are Married last night - a rare thing for us, to go and see a West End production that isn't a musical!

Hilb had given us this as a Xmas prezzie, knowing as we all did that with a cast that includes Roy Hudd, Maureen Lipman, Michelle Dotrice, Sam Kelly and Susie Blake in it just has to be good! Another fave Lynda Baron was unfortunately replaced by her understudy, but good it most certainly was...

The plot is a twist on the traditional "comedy of manners", in that the setting is pompous nouveaux riche society in Edwardian Yorkshire rather than genteel aristocratic drawing-rooms, and centres around a party being held to celebrate three couples who married on the same day twenty-five years previously. Of course, nothing is quite as simple as it seems, and when the young "lah-de-dah Southerner" church organist, about to be sacked by the dreadful old bigots of the Presbyterian chapel, drops a bombshell - the three working-class-made-good couples were never in fact legally married due to the lack of qualification of the minister!

Having well and truly pricked the bubble of their brusque pomposity, farce ensues... All the couples begin to feel the wind of freedom now they are no longer bound by law to each other. Hen-pecked Herbert Soppitt (Sam Kelly) reveals his long-standing passion for Annie Parker (Michelle Dotrice), and begins to stand up to his domineering "wife" Clara (Maureen Lipman) for the first time.

A newcomer Lottie Grady (a "tart with a heart", played brilliantly by Rosemary Ashe) calls in, on hearing the news (from the gossipy housekeeper) that all the individuals are now "free", in the hope of running away with Alderman Helliwell (David Horovitch). She reveals they had a "fling" in Blackpool, much to the horror (and slight relief) of his long-suffering "wife" Maria (Suzy Blake).

Best of all is the reaction of Annie to the news she is finally free of her overbearing skinflint husband Councillor Parker (Simon Rouse), as she tells him with scathing honesty just what she thinks about him!

But of course, this wouldn't be a proper farce without the comic turn - ably provided by the fantabulosa Roy Hudd as the drunken Henry Ormenroyd, photographer from the local paper, who has come to take photos of the "celebrating" couples and remains a witness to the whole unfolding melodrama. With a couple of rousing Music Hall sing-songs and a bravado bumbling performance, his character often provided the "gel" that kept the pace of the whole play together.

All in all, this is a lovely evening's entertainment, despite the ignoramus audience with their rattly sweet wrappers and loud whispering, and the sound of the Piccadilly Line and the police sirens penetrating the lovely Garrick Theatre (sited as it is right next to Trafalgar Square). We thoroughly enjoyed it!

Garrick Theatre

It's but a pleasurable means to a measurable end

We went to see the Menier Chocolate Factory's new production of A Little Night Music last night - and what a show!

One of Stephen Sondheim's best works, the concept is relatively simple - a soap-opera plot revolving around generational differences, relationships and sex, all set to 4/4 waltz time. But in the hands of the master of all musicals (and a tremendous cast!) it becomes far more complicated as the lives of the characters unfold, and their various paths criss-cross. Based upon an Ingmar Bergman film, and set in the craziness of the Scandinavian eternal summer, it could hardly be straightforward...

Alexander Hanson is superb as the tormented Frederick, married for almost a year to Ann, a much younger wife who is "unfortunately still a virgin" despite his evident frustration at that fact. Events turn on their head when an old flame, the actress Desiree, comes to town. Brilliantly played by Hannah Waddingham (who was the "Lady of the Lake" in Spamalot), Desiree's reappearance after fourteen years, complete with teenage daughter, throws doubt into Frederick's life. Their duet You Must Meet My Wife is a skilful dissection of the foolishness of the marriage, at the hands of a much older, wiser woman.

Frederick and Desiree's rekindling relationship causes problems for everyone when one of her lovers, the Count (accurately played as a complete madman by Alistair Robins) becomes psychopathically jealous. He uses his long-suffering wife Charlotte (the wonderful Kelly Price) to stir things up by telling the naive Ann about their affair, and she pours her heart out about her own unhappiness in the fabulous number Every Day A Little Death.

Then it all gets really complicated as Desiree talks her mother Madame Armfeldt (played to bitter, imperious perfection by Maureen Lipman, who obviously relishes the part and delivers all the best lines in the show) into hosting a Weekend in the Country, where all the characters are uncomfortably thrown together. Delicious bitchiness ensues as everyone examines their own feelings about each other, and their relationships.



The most famous number of the whole show is of course Send in the Clowns, often treated as a torch song, but here magnificently delivered by Miss Waddingham as the desperate breakdown of a strong woman's defences in the face of a rapidly diminishing chance of happiness with her lost love. Utterly awe-inspiring - I could hardly breathe through her stunning performance.

Miss Lipman's Madame Armfeldt gets her own show-stopper too, of course, as she reminisces about the flimsiness of the sexual morés of the younger generation, compared to the profitable nature of her own affairs, with Liaisons - and she really does deliver it magnificently!

At the villa of the Baron De Signac,
Where I spent a somewhat infamous year,
At the villa of the Baron De Signac
I had ladies in attendance,
Fire-opal pendants...

Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
Disgraceful! What's become of them?
Some of them
Hardly pay their shoddy way.

What once was a rare champagne
Is now just an amiable hock,
What once was a villa, at least,
Is "digs."
What once was a gown with train
Is now just a simple little frock,
What once was a sumptuous feast
Is figs.
No--not even figs--raisins!
Ah, liaisons!
Now, where was I? Where was I? Oh, yes...

At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara,
Who was prematurely deaf but a dear,
At the palace of the Duke of Ferrara
I acquired some position
Plus a tiny Titian...

Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
To see them--indiscriminate
Women, it
Pains me more than I can say,
The lack of taste that they display!

Where is style?
Where is skill?
Where is forethought?
Where's discretion of the heart?
Where's passion in the art?
Where's craft?
With a smile
And a will
But with more thought,
I acquired a château
Extravagantly overstaffed.

Too many people muddle sex
With mere desire,
And when emotion intervenes
The nets descend.
It should on no account perplex,
Or worse, inspire;
It's but a pleasurable means
To a measurable end.
Why does no one comprehend?
Let us hope this lunacy's just a trend.
Now where was I? Where was I? Oh, yes...

In the castle of the King of the Belgians,
(We would visit through a false chiffonier)
In the castle of the King of the Belgians
Who, when things got rather touchy,
Deeded me a duchy...

Liaisons! What's happened to them?
Liaisons today.
Untidy! Take my daughter, I
Taught her, I
Tried my best to point the way.
I even named her Desiree.

In a world where the kings are employers,
Where the amateur prevails
And delicacy fails
To pay,
In a world where the princes are lawyers,
What can anyone expect
Except to recollect...

And while the bitterness of the lives of the guests is played out in full, the servants take the opportunity to enjoy themselves. The maid Petra (Kaisa Hammerlund) treats us to her own thoughts on life in the wonderfully bawdy The Miller’s Son, cocking a snook at the inflexibility of the upper classes, and her outlook on sex as a young woman cleverly mirrors yet contrasts the sentiments of the much older Mme Armfeldt:

It's a very short way
From the fling that's for fun
To the thigh pressing un-
Der the table.
It's a very short day
Till you're stuck with just one
Or it has to be done
On the sly.
In the meanwhile,
There are mouths to be kissed
Before mouths to be fed,
And there's many a tryst
And there's many a bed,
There's a lot I'll have missed
But I'll not have been dead
When I die!
And a person should celebrate everything
Passing by.

Many of the complex strands of these bizarre people's lives are drawn together in a denouement that leaves some wounds exposed, but resolves many more. Not a happy ending, nor entirely sad - just A Little Night Music.

We had a great time, and even got the chance to have a little drinkie in the Green Room bar with the whole cast, including Maureen Lipman, afterwards.

I highly recommend everyone to see this show! Although the entire run at the Menier Chocolate Factory sold out within weeks, the show transfers to the Garrick Theatre on 28th March.

No preview videos are available of the Menier cast yet, but here are a few songs from the show:

Regina Reznik - Liaisons

Len Cariou and Judi Dench - You Must Meet My Wife

Julia McKenzie - The Miller's Son

Judi Dench - Send In The Clowns

A Little Night Music at Menier Chocolate Factory