Time to catch up with what I've been up to this week... We went to the wilds of Kentish Town to visit the Forum where the unstoppable New York Dolls were appearing. We had tickets for the first level seated area and as my eyes got used to the gloom - we had got there just as the support act were finishing - I saw that there were vast stretches of the padded bench seating which were empty. It was quite surprising - this was the New York Dolls people!They slouched on... David Johansen looking quite respectable in a suit and Sylvain Sylvain in his regulation leather cap, t-shirt and turned-up jeans. They were augmented by the ever-good Steve Conte on guitar and Sami Yaffa on bass with Brian Delaney on thundering drums! They launched into "Looking For A Kiss" then the title track of their new cd "Cause I Sez So" and followed this up quickly with "We're All In Love" which grew and grew into a wild rock squall with lights flashing and thunderous sound... it was a real rock gig!!They bounced into "Nobody Got No Bizness" and "Better Than You" from the new album and from their last album we got the two knockout tracks "Dance Like A Monkey" and "Get Away From Tommy" - yay! Needless to say we also got some of the songs that propelled them to success in the early 70s - "Pills", "Private World", and "Subway Train". Sylvain sang the opening verse and chorus of Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" which David took up and led into "Lonely Planet Boy". The end came with "Trash" - both the glam thrash version and their newly-recorded reggae version - "Personality Crisis" and, my favorite song of theirs - the glorious "Jet Boy", one of The great songs of the 1970s. It's been a long time since David, Syl and their broken Doll mates - Billy, Johnny, Jerry and Arthur - burst onto the rock world with their bouffant hair, platform boots and tranny-hooker make-up. As they roared through "Jet Boy" I hoped a screen would drop with the footage of them performing the same song to be sneeringly called "mock rock" by Bob Harris. Maybe so Bob... but they are also fabulous. It's a shame they were at the Forum though where the sound is uniformly muddy.

On Sunday I went with Owen to see Alison Moyet at the Festival Hall where she was promoting her recently released Best Of album.

La Moyet showed her fans something they had never seen before. Namely her waist. Wearing a figure-hugging long black dress she showed her new shapely self which doesn't appear to have affected her pipes.

Although a big fan when she was part of Yazoo I never really took to her as a solo artist although her early run of singles were good enough to make me add her first Best Of to my cds. It was interesting that the songs that showed some sonic variety of tone where the old Yazoo hits.

I know I should like her, she certainly fits the mould of singers I like but there is something about her that I simply cannot warm to. Is it that dreaded way she has of chewing off the last word in a line? The can't-be-arsed attitude on stage which I am sure most find endearing? I don't know.

I know one thing which pisses me off though about her. Now I will admit my favorite song from her back catalogue is INVISIBLE written by Lamont Dozier, without doubt one of the greatest writers of popular song. However her total dismissal of this song I find frustrating.

Her double standards toward this song is exemplified by her including it on her latest Best Of collection but her refusal to sing it live - and to go out of her way to say she isn't going to sing it - is perverse. Oh no Alison... sing us one of your recent meandering dirges but leave out this classic song which also gave you your biggest US hit. When she bored away about the fact that she would never sing the song I booed. She did however sing "Weak In The Presence Of Beauty" which is another song she said she usually refuses to sing. Which of course is another excellent pop song... written by someone else.

I don't know - maybe she looks upon "Invisible" as 'a woman as victim' song - but if this is so then why sing Jacques Brel's "If You Go Away" - the ultimate 'victim' song? Go fuckin' figure.

Catherne Zeta Jones sounds a bit of a worry but it looks like Angela Lansbury is working on the definitive "Liaisons"...

Breaking News: the cast is gong in to record a new cast recording in January...

So here we are - December rings in the last of my year-long tribute to my personal Legends of Motown.

This month's Legend has to be the group who first got me excited in the label and it's artists and I guess for quite a few in my generation that was through The Jackson 5.

It helped that I was the age that I presume was their demographic audience and I remember playing my 7" single of ABC at the primary school leaving party. I just loved them. I remember staring at the record wondering how that happy sound could be actually hidden in those grooves. Of course what I also was hypnotized by was my first blast of Soul.

The next year I bought with my birthday money what was for me then - and probably still is - The Greatest Album Of All Time: Motown Chartbusters Volume 5. Apart from The Jackson 5 (The Love You Save / I'll Be There) it had Smokey Robinson and The Miracles (Tears of A Clown), Edwin Starr (War), The Supremes (Stoned Love), Marvin Gaye (Abraham, Martin and John), Martha Reeves and The Vandellas (Forget Me Not), Four Tops (It's All In The Game / Still Water (Love)), The Temptations (Ball of Confusion), Stevie Wonder (Heaven Help Us All / Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours), Jimmy Ruffin (It's Wonderful To Be Loved By You / I'll Say Forever My Love), Diana Ross (Ain't No Mountain High Enough), The Spinners (It's A Shame).

I played that album to death... looking at the pictures of all the artists on the cover... wanting to know who they all were and dreaming of going to this magical place where all these people made this amazing music.

Needless to say my bedroom wall was covered in pictures of the happy smiling Jacksons in their multi-coloured outfits and my nose was always pressed against the screen whenever they appeared on TV - when they appeared on TOTP singing "Rockin' Robin" in their orange and yellow outfits I nearly self-combusted, to say nothing of their appearance on the 1972 Royal Command Performance.

I remember the bafflement I felt when they tailed off in success over here - their last chart single here "Skywriter" didn't even make the Top 20 in 1973 - and of course then came the madness of world fame for my former hero and all that it entailed.

When I heard the news earlier this year of Michael's death - ironically on returning home from a 50th Motown celebration at Wembley - it was with a sadness for the Michael of both our youths... the ever-smiling, whirling dynamo with the perfect afro who introduced me to the ABC's of Motown.

If it was Wednesday it was definitely Diva Central at Hammersmith.

Owen and I were among the 25 scared men who huddled together for solidarity in the face of row upon row of women who had loudly come to party. It was all rather overwhelming - the show was sold out and they were standing along the back and down the sides. I tell you - if three of them had experienced a joint hot flash we would have all gone up.

We were there to worship at the altar of three BIG-voiced Sisters of Song namely Lulu, Chaka Kahn and Anastacia. I can't say I have ever particularly cared for the latter but am a big fan of Lulu and Chaka, although Lu was the only one I have ever seen live before.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect but assumed it would take it's lead from the Divas of Motown show where they each had an allotted time to shine before maybe a group singalong at the end.

Wrong.

The three of them appeared together and came and went in ones and twos in a show that seemed to have been sequenced by the director putting his iPod on shuffle. They all had solo moments to shine but Lulu for some bizarre reason lost out in this.

Anastacia had two solos with "I'm Outta Love" and "Left Outside Alone" while "One Day In Your Life" was shared between them. Chaka shared "I'm Every Woman", "Ain't Nobody" and "I Feel For You" with her co-stars but had a solo with "Through The Fire", a lovely ballad needless to say ignored by the audience chattering through it - oh and Owen too.

And Lulu? Well, "Shout" made a for a priceless second half centrepiece, "Independence" was shared with her co-stars as was "Relight My Fire" which made for an obvious encore. But that was it - no "Man Who Sold The World", "The Boat That I Row", "I'm A Tiger", "To Sir, With Love"... hell not even "Boom-Bang-A-Bang" made it!

Even odder was the fact that the "Proud Mary" and "Disco Inferno" arrangements used showed that someone had been listening to the "What's Love Got To Do With It" soundtrack - so why not use "I Don't Want To Fight"... written by Lulu?
What we did get was a generic Motown tribute - odd to watch after the real thing had been on the same stage a couple of weeks back! I was bemused by this 1960s sequence - with Austin Powers-style groovy video projections and the obvious mini-skirted dancers - wondering what does Lulu think of having the decade that made her famous neatly summed-up in this short-handed way. We also had "Soul Man" thrown into the edit as well as Chaka soloing on "Respect" - where even she was drowned out by the audience!

There was also a generic Disco sequence which featured "Enough Is Enough" and "I Will Survive" (yawn). We also had them doing their version of the 'MOULIN ROUGE "Lady Marmalade" and slotted in between were numbers to show that our Divas are still "relevant" - Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" came and went just as they were becoming too incongruous but Lulu had a solo with Duffy's "Mercy" which again raised eyebrows - but which actually proved how she could sing the arse out of the song. Chaka seemed a bit going-through-the-motions - she obviously Doesn't Do Choreography - I was wondering whether the format suits her style of performance. It was great to see her finally on stage though. Anastacia came across well - grinning and shaking hands with the front row at the drop of a hat.

The show certainly had been stylishly put together with video sequenced backdrops, six hard-working dancers and big lighting design but the transitions from sequence to sequence could have been tighter.

I wondered after to Owen whether I would have enjoyed the show a bit better in a smaller venue where there might have been some real engagement with the audience.

My second theatrical excursion, with Owen, Sharon and Eamonn, was to see the well-reviewed play SPEAKING IN TONGUES at the Duke of Yorks Theatre. I suspect the critics must have had a particularly bad stretch of plays before they saw this one. On reflection it wasn't bad... just not good.I must declare an interest before this - I have yet to enjoy an Australian play. Admittedly I haven't seen that many but the ones I have seen seem - lightweight. Obvious. First-draftish.

The play started interestingly enough - two couples are meeting in two anonymous hotel rooms for extra-martial shags. We watch their embarrassed, fumbling attempts at small talk, each wondering who makes the first move. One couple finally do the deed... the other couple can't bring themselves to. We then follow the couples back and with Charity's "fickle finger of fate" - or a tricky playwright - the cheating man is married to the non-cheating woman and vice-versa. The scene ends where non-cheating wife and non-cheating husband slap their cheating spouses.
Now these two scenes are played on the same set by the actors at the same time with characters saying the same lines for most of the time. A clever theatrical device... if used sparingly. Here, it just draws attention to itself so I wasn't so much following the play, more waiting for one of the actors to miss their cue.

We then get roughly the same scene played twice as the two men, then the two women, meet by chance in a bar and realize who each other is.

The first act ends with the cheating husband, a police detective, telling his wife about a lingering dream he had featuring him scaring another man and the cheating wife telling her husband about her witnessing their next door neighbour furtively disposing of a woman's shoe while appearing in a jittery, scratched state.Act Two then spins the dramatic bottle and our quartet of actors are now playing new characters. A man writes to an ex-girlfriend telling her how he can't forget her - the ex-girlfriend has an uncomfortable session with her analyst about the letters while the analyst is more keen on the woman's latest relationship - the analyst is stranded on a dark road miles from anywhere and leaves increasingly panicked messages on the home answerphone for her absent husband - a man tells an unseen interrogator about how he gave a woman a lift on a dark road who then fled his car in a panic leaving her shoe which he then tried to dispose of until interrupted by his neighbour. See where this is going?

Sadly yes I could see where it was going.

Even more so when the final scene had the Detective from the first act interviewing the guarded husband of the missing woman who finally admits that the reason he was not home for her calls was because he was seeing his mistress.

And of course... the play ends with the ex-girlfriend who was in analysis with the missing woman getting a call from her lover.... guess who?

As I said as we left, does writer Andrew Bovell not realize that we might have actually seen LA RONDE?

The play was the basis for the well-received Australian film LANTANA and I can well understand how the plot contrivances would work better in a film setting. A seemingly random cross-section of people coming into contact with each other by chance reminded me of the film SHORT CUTS but on stage SPEAKING IN TONGUES eventually showed a writer striving for a universality which ended up being just groaningly obvious.

I will admit to never being bored while watching Toby Frow's production, just dulled into submission by Bovell's join-the-dots plotting. Although none of the actors are particular favorites of mine, they all invested the play with more commitment than I think it deserved.

John Simm showed a wry humour as the Detective and an angry defiance as the man accused by his neighbour of wrong-doing. Ian Hart met himself going off coming on as he played three roles - the hapless husband thinking better of having an affair, the sad ex-lover and the vanished woman's husband wrestling with guilt.

Hart launched himself at an audience member recently who he said was talking during his performance. He was probably explaining to his friend which one Hart was playing!

Actually the scenes between Simm and Hart were the best in the production, all played with a teasing tension that as said, gave the play a merit it hardly deserved.

Lucy Cohu made the most of the opposing characters she played - a jaundiced, tempted wife and the emotionally fraught analyst. Kerry Fox fared less well as the gauche, suspicious wife and the defensive patient.

And to quote Mrs. Patrick Campbell, when a rain effect in a play she was appearing in started pouring down on her rather than outside the set's windows, "And it cost the earth!"

I have had two theatrical excursions in the past few days that, of course, must be shared with you Constant Reader....

On Wednesday I made my first trip to the Menier Chocolate Factory since I was interviewed for a box office job there. Three productions have been and gone since then so I feel enough water has passed under London Bridge. And as no other theatre has felt the urge to revive SWEET CHARITY I guess it's time to return...

Indeed it was the lure of seeing Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields' classic 1966 musical on stage for the first time that had me back on the purgatorial banquettes. I have seen the film countless times and have enjoyed both the soundtrack and the 1967 London cast recording with Juliet Prowse as Charity and the magnificent Josephine Blake as Nickie but the stage version was unknown to me.

It's last London incarnation was in 1998 at the Victoria Palace in a short-lived production starring Bonnie Langford which amazingly didn't have me laying siege to the box office for a ticket and the only other opportunity to see the show was in 2005 when Christina Applegate was appearing in a revival on Broadway. There were still tickets available the evening Owen and I checked into our hotel but we eventually decided food and a snooze were higher up the agenda. So it was with a sigh of relief that the lights dimmed around me, Owen and Angela and the Menier band struck up the brassy, swaggering Overture.I had been quietly looking forward to the show but a nagging doubt remained. Last year the Menier misfired bigtime with an awful production of THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG which worryingly also had a book by Neil Simon but Matthew White's production was, by and large, a success and I had a great time. I actually think the main problem I had with the show was Neil Simon's book. What was rib-tickling 43 years ago doesn't always raise a smile now and I felt it was definitely time for a revision. But then I have never been a huge fan of his writing. He does however come into his own with the exchanges in the Fandango Ballroom - "We don't dance, we defend ourselves to music".

Luckily Cy Coleman's memorable score and Dorothy Fields' tart, gimlet-eyed lyrics save the day - it's remarkable the show isn't revived more often with show-stoppers like "Big Spender", "If My Friends Could See Me Now", "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" and "Rhythm of Life". Surprisingly they lost out on a Tony Award to the dour MAN OF LA MANCHA.

Although it seems just plain wrong for the "Rich Man's Frug" not to be danced to Bob Fosse's ice-cool choreography, Steven Mears' does a fine job in this and all the other routines.

Director Matthew White keeps the show moving at a rare clip and has given all the scenes in the Fandango Ballroom an air of quiet desperation and barely-disguised menace - none more so in the scene when a new girl appears among the hardened and disillusioned taxi dancers.

The main surprise of the evening has to be Tamzin Outhwaite as Charity. Although maybe not as obviously sympathetic as her character should be, she more than holds her own in the dance numbers and has a nice singing voice. I guess it was a surprise as since her departure from 'Eastenders' she has worked consistantly on television in humourless tv series where she has been a sort of televisual Barbie - army Tamzin, hotel manager Tamzin, doctor Tamzin etc. But here she is very watchable and easily navigates the more time-worn elements of Simon's script.
She is more than ably abetted by Josefina Gabrielle and Tiffany Graves as Nickie and Helene, the dancehall hostesses closest to Charity. Although they both appear to be channelling their previous roles as Velma and Roxie in CHICAGO, they both bring a heady waft of hard-bitten world weariness to the Fandango scenes and their "Big Spender" was deliciously aggressive.
In a nice casting decision all the men in Charity's life are played by the same actor, suggesting how she keeps making the same mistake. Mark Umbers plays in order of appearance: a menacing Charlie, a suave Vittorio Vidal and a panicky Oscar. The character of Oscar is so underwritten by Simon that you need an actor with bags of charm to carry the role off and Umbers has exactly that, making the ending all the sadder when Oscar denies Charity her happy ending.

The always dependable Paul J. Medford was a suave lead male dancer in the "Rich Man's Frug" and in the second half stopped the show as Big Daddy Brubeck with a fantastic "Rhythm Of Life" wearing an afro wig that had a life all it's own!

Jack Edwards was a ribald Herman, the commandant of the ballroom, and belted out a fine "I Love To Cry At Weddings". The ensemble doubled and tripled up to fine effect and a special mention must be made of the statuesque Ebony Molina who turned it OUT as the lead dancer in the "Rich Man's Frug" wearing a dress that made her a human glitter ball!

Although I doubt whether it will continue the pattern of Menier Christmas shows that then transfer into the West End - SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC - it's a production that brims with - well, the rhythm of Broadway life and is well worth seeing so get booking now!

I'm not sure whether the decision to stage SWEET CHARITY, which is based on Fellini's film "Le Notti di Cabiria", was decided upon to tie-in with the cinema release of Rob Marshall's screen version of NINE, the musical of Fellini's "8 1/2" but it's a strange twist of fate if not. Or as Charity would have it "The fickle finger of fate".
I must admit, the closer it gets to it's release the more I want to see it!

You know how it is Constant Reader... you just get fed up looking at the same four walls.

So Owen and I had a nice 24 hour visit to Paris a fortnight ago!Needless to say Paris kept up it's reputation as being as overcast as it has been the two previous times I visited. I must say up until now I have never really *got* Paris - I suspect it's because, thanks to Eurostar, I never really feel I have travelled somewhere... I just remain in 'city' mode. However this time I felt some of it's charm remained with me. I am now quite handy in getting about the city too which helps.Our base was the lovely Hotel Scribe which is two streets away from the Opera Garnier. It was the former home of the Jockey Club and hopefully we will be revisiting it one day. We were hardly there though as Owen had decided that this trip was all about the art!
So we hit the ground running and ended up at Lady Louvre. We decided to go for the most obvious wing, the Denon as that appeared to hold most of the Must-See works of art.
Now we had only been once before... to have a sandwich and a cup of tea in the cafe and whizz round the shop! So it was nice to actually see something this time other than the admittedly fabulous entrance hall under the pyramid!

We plunged ker-plop into so many hundreds of years of art. Bugger me, there's binloads of it in there! The best laid plans of Meissen men crumble when faced with rooms and corridors jam-packed with European paintings. There were so many paintings to try and take in so eventually I ended up just drifting along, stopping occasionally when something caught my eye. There is a jaw-dropping corridor in the wing which runs down the Seine side of the building which you could just imagine a Bourbon Roi sweeping along it surrounded by fawning courtiers. I did my best to sweep but the place was mobbed.

We saw big paintings, small paintings, famous paintings and ones that the world wouldn't mourn if they were used as enormous jotting pads... yes that's your lot Guido Reni!

We walked the length of the corridor until we worked out that we had missed the turning to "the shrine". We doubled back and about halfway down we found the room and took our place in the four-deep ever-moving crowd of people in front of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci...
It was a very strange experience - staring at this iconic painting which has been reinterpreted ad infinitum. And you know what? Despite being kept behind a barrier quite a way from the painting protected by a 6 inch glass pane, I understood why she has held our gaze and attention for over 400 years. I also had an audible chuckle over the constant whirr and buzz of cameras... like.. you are all going to be buying the postcard in the shop ANYWAY!!!

Of course the Denon wing is also home to another icon of feminine perfection... luckily these two Divas are kept apart - goodness only knows what would kick off if they ever met!

From there we wandered around the Sculpture Hall and out for a much-needed cake and Diet Coke. It also gave us a chance to nominate the three items we would put in our shopping trolley - mine oddly enough were all from the Sculpture Hall....Then we had a lengthy poke around the shop which oddly isn't all that. It's more an upmarket gift shop - as if the mere thought of having a nodding Mona Lisa would affront the famous Parisian sensibilities. Luckily in the bright and airy Carousel shopping arcade there is a gift shop which is much more comme il faut.

After all the classic art it was time for something a little bit more contemporary. We walked over to the Centre Pompidou to have a look at the permanent collection of 20th Century modern art and we were treated to yet another jaw-dropping space but as it was later in the day on a Monday night it was less crowded so easier to walk around and take time over certain exhibits. Again there was a lot that it was very easy to glide by but I enjoyed wandering around every so often being confronted by a famous work that truly justified it's status.By the end we were both tres fatigues so we went on a quick sniff around Les Halles in search of grub and found a charming bistro Au Père Fouettard where we successfully negotiated the menu to get something vegetarian for Owen to eat. Over our dinner I nominated the three things I wanted in my shopping trolley from the Pompidou - a Calder mobile, a Leon Bakst costume design for Nijinsky as "Dieu Bleu" and a Giselle Freund portrait of Virginia Woolf.
On the whole I enjoyed the space and the collection but the building itself left me a bit cold... although I'd definitely like another go on the snaking outside escalator and the great view from the top of M. Eiffel's gift to the city....Then it was back to the Scribe for a well-deserved sleep... that was until we saw, peeping around the back of the Opera Garnier, the full-on wow-factor of the Galeries Lafayette - NOW I've seen the City of Light! The animatronic teddy-bears and gingerbread man in the Xmas windows were good fun too!


So after a restless night - don't go there - we started a bit late for our Tuesday morning and afternoon. Sadly The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays but luckily that gave me time to wander around the dvd section of the subterranean Virgin Records - I bought Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT which isn't available here - and yes I DID check it had sous titres dans Anglais. We then stopped for the obligatory inverted pyramid shot which is handily outside the Virgin Records...
but not before witnessing the glorious sight of some dozy mare walking towards it gawping up at the pyramid, bumping into the little stone pyramid underneath it and smacking her gob off the glass.

Constant Reader, I pissed myself.

After that we had a calming walk through the monotonous charm of the Tuileries and decided to chance our arm with a quick look around the Musee d'Orsay on the Left Bank.
Of course as it was open and the Louvre was shut there was a long queue to get in and the place was again mobbed but once inside and seeing the main hall I was tres jolie. I raced up to the top floor - no mean feat - only to find that the gallery that held the Seurat works closed and no indication where they had been moved to - you knobtetes!

I had such a visage on me I HAD to have something to eat so we had tea and cakey in the rather fabulous cafe situated behind the right-hand clockface - needless to say it was a popular little eaterie.
We then had a quick wander around the Impressionist galleries - more bloody god-awful Sisleydaubes than you could wave a match at but there were some truly impressive works there which again, caught me unawares to be seeing them actually there... in the paint in front of me... and looking so much better than any reproduction.Time was catching up with us though and so we made a concerted effort to find the small but priceless collection of van Gogh paintings... needless to say we should have just headed to where there was the smallest room and the biggest crowd! Again I had to laugh out loud as people jostled each other to get their friends to take their photo in front of the famous self-portrait - truly a male Mona Lisa! Owen luckily had time to commune with a painting which he has long wanted to see - "The Church at Auvers-Sur-Oise".Then we whizzed around the impressive museum shop - the only annoying thing was the absence of a handy Musee d'Orsay "Greatest Hits" type paperback as opposed to large coffee table books or the door-stop catalogue. The d'Orsay is, once again, a wonderful gallery which would be great to revisit.It was a tough choice - but the three items I would like to take away in my shopping trolley from the Musee d'Orsay would be van Gogh's portrait of Dr. Gachet, Carolus-Duran's "Le Convalescent" and Caillebotte's realist masterpiece "Les Raboteurs de Parquet".
Then we had two more treats left - a quick hop on an always grin-inducing double-decker train to get us back up to Opera to dive into the wonderful confectioners La Cure Gourmande which we had wandered into the day before and been force-fed The most amazing strawberry biscuits! We stocked up an enormous paper bag full of different flavoured biscuits for our dinner on the Eurostar and headed off to Gare Du Nord.
All this and I never got to visit Jean Seberg's grave in the lovely cemetery in Montparnasse as I have done on my previous Parisian jaunts. I'll have to go twice next time to make up.

Yes I think Paris has finally won me over.

And finally...

...the enigmatic smile of the timeless beauty that thousands have looked on in awe.

And some Italian mystery in a painting.

No wonder there was such a downpour on Saturday night as lightning definitely struck twice in Hammersmith earlier with more exposure to the glories of the Motown Divas!

Owen had splashed out on VIP front-row stalls tickets which saw us whisked up to a small room with a free bar - excuse me people - with our fellow front-rowers and we speculated on what treats we were going to be given by our heroes of song!

We were escorted down to the stalls - eeek! - and the show started with Jack Ashford strolling onto the stage playing his tambourine - those in the know gave him the ovation he deserved and the show was off and rolling.

Jack and his excellent Funk Brothers band under the eye of keyboardist John Shipley gave us a few numbers to get us warmed up and again we were treated to great vocals by (I think!) Valencia Robinson and Al/Art (??) and Jeneane Cranert. It would have been nice for them to be introduced along with the other musicians.
As with the Jazz Cafe, the first guest onstage was Mable John, this time dressed in a resplendent white lace gown. She sang her four songs from the earlier show - MY NAME IS MABLE, WHO WOULDN'T LOVE A MAN LIKE THAT, RUNNING OUT and SAME TIME, SAME PLACE - but again she did them with a great charismatic authority that made it impossible to watch anyone but her onstage - it's not every 79 year-old who could chat up her musicians - and be believable while she was doing it!! She exited the stage to a rapturous, standing ovation.Surprisingly next up was Brenda Holloway who had closed the Jazz Cafe show. Brenda was eye-popping in a low-cut silk dress of flounces and frills (on more flounces and frills) but she gave a non-flouncy performance which dripped with class and pure solid soul! I'm still not sure what her opening number is but she followed it up with pure classic Motown: OPERATOR, WHEN I'M GONE, a full-on torch version of EVERY LITTLE BIT HURTS and an uplifting YOU MADE ME SO VERY HAPPY. Like Mabel, she connected effortlessly with the audience, seemingly making the Hammersmith auditorium into an intimate space. Needless to say she exited to a delirious standing ovation.Jack then said when he met the next singer again for this tour he assumed it was her daughter - silver-tongued devil! He introduced onto the stage my own favorite Chris Clark. It was great to see her sneak on from the wings to a huge cheer. She performed the same set as at the Jazz Cafe - LOVE'S GONE BAD, DO RIGHT BABY DO RIGHT, I WANT TO GO BACK THERE AGAIN and DO I LOVE YOU (INDEED I DO) and looked magnificent dressed all in black, which set off her mane of white-blonde hair wonderfully. "Gee this is a big stage" Chris informed us and indeed most of her set was performed closer to the band than the mike stand! Again she was wonderfully 'herself' on stage - grinning from ear to ear, saying a heartfelt thanks to the fans for keeping the music and the performers alive and viable as well as complementing Mabel and Brenda on their stagecraft.

It was fab to see Chris on the large stage where she - as well as Mable and Brenda - deserved to be! She left the stage during the gospel wig-out coda to DO I LOVE YOU so quickly the audience were just getting to their feet but Jack called her out again and she stood and waved by the wings - bless!

We scooted back up to our VIP room for more free booze and a free poster - in lieu of the non-existent brochure - then it was back for more from Jack and his Funkateers then on with the guests: Scherrie Payne and Lynda Laurence are former members of The Supremes and they were joined onstage by Joyce Vincent who used to sing with 70s group Dawn - well she IS from Detroit.Now as you all know I saw the first - and best - line-up of the 1970s Supremes twice on that very stage so it was with mixed feelings that I sat through their repertoire (the longest of the evening). Poor Lynda Laurence has had my evil eye on her for 30+ years as she took over from Cindy Birdsong thus ending my favorite Supremes line-up and she had an oddly strident voice - Scherrie Payne certainly had the better voice of the two. They did an accomplished and polished routine but it was the act I felt the least about. The 1970s Supremes had a great run of hit singles in this country but they only sang STONED LOVE, everything else was from the Diana Ross era. Now I know they *have* to sing these songs but as they had the longest time on stage they could at least have tailored the routine to at least acknowledge the period which saw them employed! No NATHAN JONES, no FLOY JOY, no AUTOMATICALLY SUNSHINE... they were hardly playing to an unknowing audience - as was acknowledged from the stage, we knew the lyrics as well as the artists did! A missed opportunity.Last but not least we had the dynamo that is Thelma Houston who WORKED that stage - she never stopped moving!! I am still racking my brain to remember what her opening number was but she followed it up with SATURDAY NIGHT, SUNDAY MORNING and a Motown megamix which got us to our feet - finally! We stayed there for her final number which was of course DON'T LEAVE ME THIS WAY which was pure disco heaven!!
After that there was nothing more than to get all our Sisters of Soul back on stage for a rousing version of DANCING IN THE STREET - again with Chris retreating towards the back of the stage!! There was a lovely moment when Brenda showed her a few dance steps! Needless to say they were all cheered and applauded with gusto.

Then we were shepherded first back to the VIP room where we hung around for a bit before being ushered back to the circle bar where the after-show was taking place so it wasn't so much a 'Meet and Greet' as a "Hunt The Star" which is hardly the same thing. For some unknown reason wherever I went, there was Ian Levine bending the ears of the artists, reminding them AT LENGTH about where they had met, what he had in his collection, what he was working on etc. etc. I could hardly get a word in edge-ways with Jack Ashford but he signed my book while shooting glances my way as Levine reminded him of some long-forgotten track - I said to Jack "Is your life flashing before your eyes?" to which he replied "You know it".

I also stood patiently with poster outstretched in front of Scherrie Payne while she chatted away to a guy from a small radio station who was trying to get an interview with her. Her young and gushing rep then joined in and demanded a photo of her with the other faux-Supremes and Freda Payne while a Mutual Appreciation Society was formed. Needless to say I didn't wait too longer after that.
However no such problems with Brenda Holloway who was happy to sign whatever what was put in front of her, pose for pictures, answer fans' questions and give out hugs and kisses with abandon - see Scherrie? THAT'S how it's done. Thelma Houston was also very gracious too.And of course... there was Chris Clark. Instantly surrounded by fans, she won hearts as she chatted away like a chatty thing, smiling and signed, posing and laughing. I edged closer and closer to her and her face lit up when she saw me wearing my signed t-shirt from the Jazz Cafe. She signed my poster and I asked her a question. In between the two concerts I had posted a review on a Motown yahoo group and had seen later with amazement that the head of the label that recently re-issued Chris' SOUL SOUNDS album on CD posted a follow-up saying he had spoken to Chris and read her my review! I asked her if he had done this and she told me she loved what I had written and that it had made her day - that made my night!We chatted for quite a while - and Constant Reader, that remains a secret! I am so glad I had a chance to tell these remarkable women how much there music has meant to me and how it continues to delight and move me.

Come back soon!!