Sad news this evening that Cyd Charisse the ballet dancer who became one of the great dancing stars of MGM Musicals has died aged 86.

Born Tula Finklea - now there's a name to change from - in Texas, she joined the Ballet Russes at 13 and eventually found her way to Hollywood appearing in featured dance numbers in the 1940s.

Contracted to MGM it was in 1952 that she first captured the public's attention with her appearance in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN during the climactic "Broadway Melody" number when a hapless Gene Kelly tangles with her in a steamy nightclub pas-de-deux, she even cleans his glasses on her thigh!

Kelly enjoyed working with her so much they were later teamed together in the screen version of BRIGADOON and IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER where she also had a great number in a boxing club "Baby You Knock Me Out".

The year after SINGIN' IN THE RAIN brought her best showcase, opposite Fred Astaire in Vincente Minnelli's THE BAND WAGON. She played a star ballerina hired to appear in a Broadway show with one-time star Astaire who is resentful of her classical background. Of course they fall in love and how...
the DANCING IN THE DARK number is one of the loveliest dance routines from the MGM musicals, a stroll in a nocturnal (sound-staged) Central Park slowly turning into a swooningly romantic duet.

Choreographer Michael Kidd then paired them in the climactic dance routine "The Girl Hunt Ballet" with Astaire as a 'Mickey Spillaine'-type pulp fiction private eye trying to find his would-be assassin while also tangling with Charisse as both a sweet and innocent blonde girl and a sexy brunette night-club dancer.

Now I had selected a few shots of her as the night-club dancer but none of them compare to the actual footage... just watch them make screen magic - with Minnelli's wonderful eye for colour - with this fiercely cool and thrilling routine.... I LOVE this!


Despite appearing again with Astaire in the screen musical SILK STOCKINGS her years of stardom coincided with the end of the golden years of the MGM Musical and she turned to appearing in dramas such as PARTY GIRL and TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN.

In her later years she often appeared in shows with her singer-husband Tony Martin and she even appeared singing and dancing at the Victoria Palace in the 1980s in a revival of CHARLIE GIRL - a brave move bearing in mind she was invariably dubbed in her screen musicals!

Pah... bloody Tony Award voters!

XANADU and SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE were both overlooked at last night's ceremony, losing out in all the categories they were nominated in. Gulp... SUNDAY was up for nine!

The good news is that the three stars of GYPSY, Patti LuPone, Laura Benanti and Boyd Gaines, all won for their performances.

Of the nine British actors nominated in the drama categories it was success for Mark Rylance for his performance in BOEING BOEING - which also won Best Revival - and Jim Norton in THE SEAFARER which had transferred from the National Theatre.

I have had fun revisiting two theatrical delights this weekend.

First was Vanessa Redgrave in an hour-long conversation with Al Senter at the National Theatre.

Now Vanessa has had about 50 years to perfect her interview style but whenever I have seen her being interviewed it always seems as if she's been doing it 50 minutes!

She is unable to toss off a few well-honed crowd-pleasing anecdotes at the drop of a hat and the questions put to her are answered with an honesty that can border sometimes on a simple yes or no without elaboration. It is always a peculiar experience when one is used to so many other soundbite-friendly performers.

I suspect most of it must come down to her being deliberately misquoted so often in interviews about her political views that have then been used against her that she is naturally cautious when it comes to answering any. At least she didn't bring her own tape recorder with her as she has been known to do with print interviews!

Anytime spent in Vanessa's presence is beneficial however and she spoke with a direct eloquence of her latest great stage role in Joan Didion's THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. It was also good to hear that the film role which most satisfied her was as ISADORA. Now if Universal would only release it on dvd...

On Saturday night Owen and I went to the Playhouse to see the transfer of THE HARDER THEY COME seen earlier this year at the Barbican Theatre.
Happily the show has transferred well to the auditorium and hopefully can settle down to a long run. The hard-working cast fully deserved the standing ovation at the end of the show which also served as a good skanking opportunity for a reprise of the title song.

The cast is still headed by the charismatic Rolan Bell as Ivan, the countryboi who seeks fame and fortune as a reggae singer in early 70s Kingston but finds corruption and hypocrisy blocking his way. Attempting to finance his own recordings by turning to exporting herb he runs up against the corrupt police chief Ray Pierre (Chris Tummings) and realises that you can indeed "Get It If You Really Want" but at the price of becoming Kingston's most wanted outlaw.

What makes this so great is that yes, there are still a couple of over-stated performances and yes, it still feels rough around the edges but that does not detract from a wonderfully vibrant production which engages you with it's energy, it's committed central performances and of course the fantastic songs of Jimmy Cliff, Toots Hibbert etc. Go deh!

Oh Christ... where am I going to spend money I don't have in New York now?

The Virgin Megastore in Times Square is going to close in 2009.

Reuters say "Vornado, the company that owns the property, is forcing out the struggling chain so that it can up the rents on a new tenant"

Virgin pays $54 a square foot in an area where rents can easily fetch $700, an executive vice president at Vornado told Reuters.

The chain's Union Square location should also vanish early next year.

As you can see by the little widget on the right I am on the music network site Last.fm, and good fun it is too. I was poking about on there this afternoon and found a few good music questionnaires so here's one I am nicking off Janell from America:

"Post your top fifteen bands/artists, the first song you heard of theirs, a song you love, and your current favourite" 

1) Kirsty MacColl
First: They Don’t Know
Love: Soho Square
Currently: Caroline

2) Madonna
First: Material Girl
Love: Holiday
Currently: Give It To Me

3) Mary J. Blige
First: Real Love
Love: Baggage
Currently: Just Fine

4) Gladys Knight & the Pips
First: Midnight Train To Georgia
Love: No One Could Love You More
Currently: Bourgie Bourgie

5) Sugababes
First: Overload
Love: About You Now
Currently: Surprise

6) Prince
First: I Wanna Be Your Lover
Love: I Would Die 4 U
Currently: Chelsea Rogers

7) Lulu
First: Shout
Love: Only One
Currently: Dream Lover

8) Diana Ross & The Supremes
First: Baby Love
Love: Come See About Me
Currently: Falling In Love With Love

9) Aretha Franklin
First: I Say A Little Prayer
Love: Your Song
Currently: A Rose Is Still A Rose

10) Barbara Cook
First: The Ingenue
Love: Errol Flynn
Currently: Losing My Mind

11) Pet Shop Boys
First: West End Girls
Love: Being Boring
Currently: My Girl

12) Morrissey
First: This Charming Man
Love: The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get
Currently: Hairdresser On Fire

13) Dusty Springfield
First: I Only Want To Be With You
Love: People Get Ready
Currently: Every Day I Have To Cry

14) Clydie King
First: The Thrill Is Gone
Love: Missin’ My Baby
Currently: Ready Willing & Able

15) Darts
First: Daddy Cool/The Girl Can’t Help It
Love: Get It
Currently: I Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love

Last night was a date with destiny.

I always wanted to see Mary J. Blige in concert but was always wary as I was unsure what it would be like. I've bought all her albums so I should have seen her by now but I suspect her 1998 live cd gave me pause. Although she sounded great there is a rapper onstage hollering over her like a cheerleader with Tourettes "Mary in da fuckin' house... make some noise muthafuckaaas". Charmed.

I have also found some of her output to be a bit variable, usually down to the ubiquitous love of the meandering mid-tempo ballad by r&b divas. Although MY LIFE is singled out by critics as her best album I found it a frustrating listen as for each gem there were 2 anonymous mid-tempo ballads to aurally wade through to get to them. This inconsistency was evident as late as 2003 when the excellent NO MORE DRAMA was followed up with the lacklustre LOVE & LIFE. But with back-to-back great albums THE BREAKTHROUGH and GROWING PAINS I decided that I needed to see her.

But again I was concerned - was the O2 arena going to be the best place to see her? Surely she was going to be a bit stranded there. HA! She appeared at the top of a staircase in the middle of the stage in a flash of fire and launched into "Grown Woman" from GROWING PAINS and within a few minutes I was hooked. She was fantastic!
We had lighting cues, video projections, pyrotechnics, girl dancers, costume changes. But here is the key... we had *a* costume change, the dancers came on for a chorus or two towards the end of the show then melted away, the video projections were tastefully done and although the fireworks and flares were nice to see... they really weren't needed. Mary supplied all the real pyrotechnics!

She tore into her back catalogue singing short versions of several of her songs including the fabulous "Real Love" which really needed to be longer. But after a while we started to get the full length versions of key songs - one more jaw-dropping than the last.She asked for our assistance in helping sing her cover of "I'm Going Down" and I must say we sounded pretty fierce as we also did on "Not Gon' Cry". She also sang an amazing solo version of "One" her hit duet with U2, a lovely "Everything", a thrilling "Fade Away" from GROWING PAINS.

It made me wonder why she has never really had the chart success or popular respect she deserves in this country as opposed to the synthetic Barbie's who usually lay claim to the tarnished word 'diva' after one album and an overdose of Junior Disprin. Maybe the fact is Mary is too raw, she is not a polished pop/r&b crossover. She personifies Ghetto Fabulous but her doubts and struggles are never far from the surface. Her music is informed by it, her onstage words are exhortions to be yourself and not be held down by what others feel they can mold you into. All of this culminated in a white-hot "No More Drama". I think it might have been the most exciting vocal performance I have ever seen.

But Mary is in a happier frame-of-mind now so she left us with three great 'up' songs - "Work That" and "Just Fine" (cannot tell you how much I love this song!) and as an encore her urban dance classic "Family Affair".

I always thought the comparisons with Aretha were over-reaching. I know better now.

Yeah I know I've been a bit quiet... been getting on with the new job and very little else. I really can't bore you with the details.

But Sunday was a real diva fest! In the afternoon Owen and I went around the Victoria & Albert Museum's exhibition THE STORY OF THE SUPREMES.

Curated from Mary Wilson's collection of their stage outfits it was huge fun seeing so many of the dresses I have seen in photographs, album covers and TV footage.

There was the pink layered dress, so often seen in their early television appearance that would loosely sway as they did...
There was the riot of colour that was the heavily-sequinned 'butterfly wing' gowns as seen on the covers of the TCB and CREAM OF THE CROP albums...There were the pale pink diamante-studded tight-fitting dresses that they dazzled London at the Royal Variety Performance with - odd how it photographs white:
There was the funky outfit for LOVE CHILD when The Supremes went 'Urban'
Happily *my* Supremes - 1970-72 - was also represented with the Bob Mackie 'Peach' dresses
and there was also the glittery fuschia gowns seen on the front of the 1970s GREATEST HITS:
As you can see... I loved it!After that we headed over to the restrained surroundings of Cadogan Hall to see the eternal Petula Clark.

We saw her last year in the less restrained Croydon Fairfield Hall and she was damn fine... professional to her fingertips and of course still singing her classic pop songs from her golden period of the 1960s.

Although it was roughly the same show I must admit this time I was a little less engaged. It is phenomenal she is still out there, taking the show to her fans. I mean.. here is a woman who has been a household name for 65 years!!! I'll be generous and blame it on it being the first night of her tour but she seemed to have difficulty pitching her voice. I think the main problem is that the songs we all want to hear are presented exactly as they were in the 1960s so it forced her to sing them in an upper register that she doesn't seem to have the breath for anymore.

Maybe it's time to find a way of presenting them in a new style - believe it or not, she did a lovely ballad version of I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND accompanying herself on the piano so maybe this might be a solution. The over-emphatic brass section and drummer also gave her stiff competition as to who was the centre of attention.

Her energy level didn't seem to flag though and although it was not a sell-out she was loudly cheered.... and when you finish the evening belting out I COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOUR LOVE it's impossible to say you didn't have a good time!

I am sure you all know this but 472 years ago today Anne Boleyn was executed on Tower Green.

It is unknown exactly what age she was definitively - various sources claim between 29 and 35.

She has been a heroine of mine ever since falling under the spell of Genevieve Bujold's performance in ANNE OF THE THOUSAND DAYS in 1970.

The late 60s and early 70s saw four top actresses trying on Anne's French Hood headdress - Vanessa Redgrave in a non-speaking cameo in A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, the afore-mentioned Bujold, Dorothy Tutin in the BBC's THE 6 WIVES OF HENRY VIII and Charlotte Rampling in HENRY VIII & HIS 6 WIVES.

On Thursday I saw my favourite actress Vanessa Redgrave give her tour-de-force performance in the one woman play THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING at the Lyttleton. I had hoped to see it on Broadway last year when Owen had booked to see Buffy Sainte-Marie but his back operation 86ed that so I have been looking forward to this.

The play is by Joan Didion based on her memoir written after the death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, from a heart attack. Just as the book was published her daughter Quintana also died at 39 of pancreatitis after a year of near-fatal illnesses. The play was written by Didion to encompass these two devastating blows and how she has come to accept them.

The play has had mixed reviews citing what Owen overheard two women saying afterwards, that they didn't connect with it. I can't say I 'connected' with the play totally. The fact that these real life events have been distilled twice through Didion's analytical mind - onto the page then stage - and are re-interpreted by Vanessa Redgrave leads to a definite distancing from the events. But apart from that... I found it an extraordinary experience.

It is only in retrospect that you realise the character has changed during the course of the 90 minute play. At first she is analytical and deals with the death of her husband in a rational, intellectual way - noting how the hospital staff treat her, her social worker referring to her as "a cool customer" to the doctor, checking the times of the ambulance crew entering & leaving the apartment from her doorman to get straight in her mind how long they worked on her husband lying on the dining room floor. She extends this then to her ill daughter in an Intensive Care Unit, buying medical books to understand what the doctor's jargon means and what each of the medications are.

Rational thoughts lead to irrational conclusions however: calling a friend in California on returning home from the hospital she realises they are 3 hours behind New York so that means he's not dead yet on the west coast; that she can't give his shoes away as he will need them when he comes back. She calls this Magical Thinking such as "if we sacrifice the virgin the crop will be good". Her ultimate Magical Thinking happens when Quintana is hospitalised during a trip to LA. She takes a deliberately longer way from hotel to hospital so she won't pass any of the places she remembers from living there in the 70s which will remind her of her husband or daughter. Oh and she has taken to wearing hospital 'scrubs' thinking she can then fit in easier among the medics. Yet by the end of the 90 minutes she is no longer thinking like this, the death of the daughter who was always told "It's all right, I'm here" to comfort her when a child or to as she lay comatose in a hospital room has humbled her rationale. Ultimately she comes to the understanding that they eventually must be let go of, that the shoes must be given away.

It sounds a depressing evening but there are quite a few moments of humour. It's beautifully written, a joy to hear prose like this onstage. The direction by David Hare is perfectly attuned to the rhythm of the play and special mention must be made of Jean Kalman's atmospheric lighting. Bob Crowley's set design of a series of collapsing backdrops help separate the 'chapters' of the play while being visually arresting. None more so than at the very end of the play when the last backdrop is revealed - a blowup of a 70s photograph of the family in California which is poignant after what has been revealed earlier. It's the perfect photograph for the production: Joan's husband and daughter together looking at the camera, she looking at them slightly apart.
The reason for the play's success for me lies with Vanessa. Always the most emotionally true of her generation of actresses Vanessa has mined every word of the script, witness the different changes she can ring with a phrase such as "I'm here, you'll be fine" with each repetition. I didn't believe her as Joan Didion but I fully believed her as the voice of Didion's book. Looking luminous in white and gray with her long white hair pulled back she simply mesmerizes even though at times the dry Didion style is at odds with her usual acting style.

Although I always cite GUYS AND DOLLS as the catalyst for my theatrical conversion 3 months before seeing it I saw Vanessa and Ian Charleson in two Sunday afternoon benefit performances at the old Roundhouse for the Youth Training Centres she was sponsoring. They performed scenes from Ibsen, Shakespeare, solo pieces, songs... they even did the first scene between Sky & Sarah in GUYS AND DOLLS - yes show fans, I have heard Vanessa sing "I'll Know"! Actually these benefits were the 'light on the road to the National Theatre' showing me the alchemy possible on a stage.

Since 1982 I have only missed 5 of the 24 productions in which Vanessa has appeared in this country. She has not always been at her best - it's usually dependent on the production - but her performance in MAGICAL THINKING is up there with Miss Tina in THE ASPERN PAPERS, Arkadina in THE SEAGULL, Cleopatra in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, Mrs. Alving in GHOSTS, Lady Torrence in ORPHEUS DESCENDING, Isadora Duncan in WHEN SHE DANCED and Ranyevskaya in THE CHERRY ORCHARD.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING is on at the Lyttleton Theatre until July 15th.

Today the nominations for the Tony Awards were announced and there was some good news for shows I saw in New York.

XANADU is nominated for Best Musical, Best Book, Best Actress In A Musical for Kerry Butler and Best Choreography. What a shame there is no nod for Cheyanne Jackson for his delightful performance.

GYPSY is nominated for Best Musical Revival, Best Actress In A Musical for Patti LuPone, Best Supporting Actor In A Musical for Boyd Gaines, Best Supporting Actress In A Musical for Laura Benanti, Best Director, Best Costume Design and Best Sound.SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is nominated for Best Musical Revival, Best Actor In A Musical for Daniel Evans, Best Actress In A Musical for Jenna Russell, Best Director, Best Orchestration, Best Scenic Design, Best Costume, Best Lighting and Best Sound.

Somehow CRY-BABY has picked up nods for Best Musical (huh?), Best Book (Huh??), Best New Score (HUH??) and Best Choreography.

Oh and Stephen Sondheim is being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

In the other Awards, the Brits get a good look-in: three of the four Best Play nominees are written by British or Irish writers - which probably means the American playwright will win! Ben Daniels, Mark Rylance, Rufus Sewell, Patrick Stewart, Eve Best, Kate Fleetwood, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton, Sinead Cusack are all up for acting Awards and Maria Aitkin, Mathew Wachus and Sam Buntrock for Best Director.

Seats 21-22 of row 35 in Block 123 at Wembley Stadium on Thursday 11th September are TAKEN!

Well... I've started! Thursday May 8th at 9.30am found me at the Kinetic Business Centre - which looks like a travel lodge - to start work for an online furniture company who are soon to launch their first website on the world. I know... what do I know from furniture? But I know how to data imput and how to work eBay so hopefully I can do well there. First off I must say what a nice place it is to work. There is a nice communal feel to the place with a nice cafe just by the reception - hell I even discovered a shower on my travels! I think I'll move in. It would help with the 9.30 start. Actually it's not the 9.30 start.. it's the getting up at 7.30. Here is my desk and computer in the compact and bijou office where I work with Jonathan our glorious leader. I need to get a bit more up to speed about the ranges on offer etc. and as the business has only just moved in to the office we need to sort phones and stuff but I haven't made any disasters yet! So... if anyone is looking to buy new furniture.....

What a strange month April was.

I flew back from New York into a life of unemployment which I expected to last for months and months and months but in fact lasted for a total of 21 days!

All in all I applied for six jobs and was offered interviews for five. Oh and I signed on once... and even that was the morning of Monday 21st. Oh and how did I find the agency that offers "the job you want, the help you need"? Pretty piss-poor. The best my adviser could suggest was "Have you considered working part-time? Theme parks will be recruiting for their summer retail staff". Bloody idiot.

Monday 21st was a very odd day - an interview in the morning for retail and one in the afternoon for office admin work. Both seemed very keen so I had to make a choice which of these two areas I wanted to work in.

The retail one was hounding me for a decision about working a trial week for a job as assistant manager of a London souvenir shop - what was putting the break on it was I would have to work a lot of evenings. In the early evening I was called by the admin office and offered me the job flat out. So I accepted!

The nice thing was Owen was with me when I accepted the offer so we could celebrate straight away and use free drink for the purpose!

We were at the launch for Jean MacColl's book SUN ON THE WATER at Kettners which is her account of the life and tragic death of her daughter, singer Kirsty MacColl. It was a nice event made nicer by the company of Owen, Alan Officer and Norma, Claire and Barry.

It was nice to finally have an excuse to introduce myself to Jean, I have always felt a bit odd about doing it at one of the October bench events. She gave a nice speech and told us all to make lots of new friends... so here I am, first with Jean and then with my new very dear close personal friend Alison Steadman.

I didn't have the nerve to tell her it was my ex-boss who once smacked her up the tradesman's with his briefcase at the bar at Stratford East.

A certain someone has confirmed a World Tour is coming up. I have even seen provisional dates.

Now the countdown to the box-office opening.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock....

Local election television all through the night.... I love it - and I don't have any work to get up for! The bummer is they won't be announcing the Mayoral (I like that word) election results till tomorrow.

First result in: Tamworth held by the Tories. Oooo they are talking about voting swings *faint*