It's Monday again. So soon..?!! Bleurgh!
Time to cheer ourselves up with some (more) of the wonderful Betty Bacall - on this Tacky Music Monday, she is One of the Girls Who Is One of the Boys - and we love her for it!
Have a good week!
Monday, 15 October 2012
One of the Girls Who's One of the Boys
It's Monday again. So soon..?!! Bleurgh!
Time to cheer ourselves up with some (more) of the wonderful Betty Bacall - on this Tacky Music Monday, she is One of the Girls Who Is One of the Boys - and we love her for it!
Have a good week!
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Nana-rama
Another birthday this weekend, and more of what we like to call "Sunday music". Many happy returns (yesterday) to house fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers (and the world's biggest-selling female solo artist!) Miss Nana ("respectable spectacles") Mouskouri!
To open this little tribute, Nana and her chums give us a little Greek dancing lesson, with the song that (with new English lyrics) became Never On A Sunday - how appropriate, some may say!
Here she is duetting with Julio Iglesias on Grande Grande Grande (better known as Dame Shirl's Never Never Never):
And finally, here Nana and Mireille Mathieu perform a beautiful version of the Spanish-Mexican standard La Paloma:
Harúmena genéthlia! [Happy birthday in Greek]
See my previous tributes to the magnificent Nana here and here.
Nana Mouskouri (born 13th October 1934)
Gallic Affairs
"A man can have two, maybe three love affairs while he's married. After that it's cheating."
Yesterday would have been the 91st birthday of the ultimate Gallic icon Yves Montand.
Despite being adored by the French nation as one of its greatest singers, actors and performers, the ruggedly handsome M. Montand was actually born Ivo Livi in Tuscany. He fled with his parents from Mussolini's Fascists in the 1920s, and began his singing career in the music halls of Marseilles. There he was discovered in 1944 by the legendary Edith Piaf, who picked him as a lover as well as duettist, and the rest is history...
Among his many movies (in English as well as French), he starred in Goodbye Again (with Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Perkins), My Geisha (with Shirley MacLaine), Is Paris Burning? (with Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon) Jean de Florette (with Gerard Depardieu) and its sequel Manon des Sources, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (with Barbra Streisand).
In 1951, Montand married actress Simone Signoret, which lasted until her death in 1985. Despite his long marriage he had a number of well-publicised affairs with famous stars, notably with Marilyn Monroe (with whom he co-starred in Let's Make Love), Miss MacLaine, Anne Fleurange (who sued for paternity) and even a rumoured gay affair with a noted star of French chanson, Reda Caire.
His singing career kept him at the top of France's affections to the end of his life, regularly selling-out prestigious venues as the Paris Olympia, and one song (later to become an American standard as Autumn Leaves, with lyrics re-written by Johnny Mercer) was his enduring "theme tune" Les Feuilles Mortes:
He had a cheeky humour, encapsulated in this clip of Idylle philomenale:
To conclude, here's one of his big Hollywood moments (with Mega-Babs) - Come Back To Me (from On A Clear Day):
J'adore Yves Montand. RIP
Yves Montand (13th October 1921 - 9th November 1991)
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Aunt, interrupted
Mat Horne
Eleven of our gang minced off to the fantabulosa Menier Chocolate Factory last night for the much-anticipated revival of that grand old British farce Charley's Aunt, starring the gorgeous Mat Horne (of Catherine Tate Show and Gavin and Stacey fame) and none other than Jane Asher.
We settled into our seats (amongst a conglomeration of keen and chattering drama students - it was reminiscent of a crèche, or maybe Jimmy Savile's pantry), and the show opened well, setting the scene whereby college students Jack (Dominic Tighe) and Charley (Benjamin Askew) - hamming it up as prototypes for David Cameron and Boris Johnson - inveigle their equally cash-strapped colleague Lord Fancourt "Babbs" Babberley into impersonating the eponymous Charley's Aunt, in order to not only "get the girls of their dreams" but also encourage a situation whereby they can get themselves some money out of the deception.
All of which would have been fine - and it was indeed a classy opener - but for the sudden grinding noises and the lack of an appearance of Mr Horne as "the Aunt", which led to an unexpected break in the performance after just half an hour, and then an announcement that "technical difficulties" meant the show was cancelled!
We hid our disappointment well with some gin, but nevertheless it is a shame not to have seen it. There is a scant possibility of rescheduling tickets - but not for all of us, so we have opted for a refund.
Ho hum. Never mind. Here's something jolly to cheer us up instead.
A colleague in work pointed me in the direction of this - Beethoven's Ode To Joy, as you have never heard it before, courtesy of Beaker from The Muppet show!
Some sort of substitute, maybe...
Menier Chocolate Factory
Friday, 12 October 2012
So let's dance through all our fears
I listened to Part 1 of BBC Radio 2's tribute to Our Princess last night - Kylie at 25, which featured Paul Gambaccini interviewing Miss Minogue and a selection of clips from her quarter-century career. It was wonderful!
[2019 UPDATE: unsurprisingly, gone from the BBC website]
This also happens to be our regular celebration of surviving yet another week chained to our desks. So, without further ado, let us all slip into our spangliest hot-pants and boogie along with Kyles and Your Disco Needs You - Thank Disco It's Friday!
Kylie official website
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Baby Dawn
photo: Chris Blott
"If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush."
It's Dawn French's birthday, bitches!
From The Comic Strip Presents and Murder Most Horrid to The Vicar of Dibley and latterly Roger and Val Have Just Got In - which I have never actally watched - she is one of the queens of British TV comedy.
Miss Dawn Roma French was born in Wales and brought up in Plymouth (two places very familiar to me in my life). She emerged from the right-on world of the Central School of Speech and Drama in the early 80s, and with friend and flatmate Jennifer Saunders went on to conquer the world of "alternative" comedy. With their singular brand of subtle zaniness [I hate that word, but it fits], and uncanny ability to not just impersonate but also actually look like the famous (and not-so-famous) characters that are often the subject of their sketches, Dawn and Jen have quite rightly emerged from the world of alternative cabaret to become "national treasures".
In tribute to the divine Miss French, here are a few classics from the French and Saunders show...
What Ever Happened to Baby Dawn?:
Lucky Bitches:
Bjork:
French and Saunders website
Faboo!
About a Boy
Apparently this week thirty years ago, a certain Madonna Ciccone released her very first record Everybody, and began her quest for world domination. It would, of course, take another couple of years before she was even heard of in the UK.
No, thirty years ago, the world belonged to a boy called George - whose appearance and amazingly catchy debut hit Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? was practically the only thing in the news in October 1982 (Cold War, Falklands fall-out, suppression of the Polish Solidarity union and the raising of the Mary Rose aside...). Something had changed in society, for good, with this single.
Culture Club official website
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