She came, I saw, she conquered...
I had been so preoccupied with my unemployed state and Owen's back op that I had purposefully not been thinking about September 11th... Madonna Day! What... you thought I meant something else?
It looked like I was going alone as Owen was only out of the hospital on Tuesday but he reinvented himself as an action hero and managed to get to Wembley by cab so we could see Herself together as planned.We have been spoiled with the stadium taking so long to be rebuilt. That has meant M has played the Arena instead, giving more intimate - yes Arena and intimate used in the same sentence - shows, and more of them. Now I guess normal diva status has been resumed and she will be playing the stadium again....sigh.
Still the Icon pre-sale tickets were not too bad - halfway down on the side looking across onto the stage and runway. As usual I had the Mad Cow magnet on and was next to a creature who before it started apologised for all the times she was going to bump into me while she danced. "That's ok" sez I "I was just building up to saying the same to you". And sure enough, everytime she banged into me I banged into her.
They announced at 8:25pm the show was about to start. Yeah right... it's a Madonna show - sure enough we had a 9:10 kick-off. There's been bitching in the press today about this but I guess these people didn't go to any of her previous shows. I have been spoilt with the last two tours by having the chance to see them a couple of times but this was the only chance on this one so I was concentrating on the stage as soon as the lights went down!Although it wasn't as good as the Confessions tour the show was still a vibrant, pulsing, colourful, extravaganza punched over with wit, thumping beats and vision. They can bitch about the prices... but I have never felt short-changed.
Kicking off, like the showcase gigs recently, was CANDY SHOP but that kinda whizzed past in the thrill of seeing her there - in the flesh - as big as a thumbnail! That slammed into BEAT GOES ON featuring a big white cadillac that drove down the runway while Kanye West rapped on the big screens. Next up was a bump'n'grinding version of HUMAN NATURE backed by CCTV footage of a hoodied-blonde trapped in a lift who answered Madonna's last "I'm not your bitch" with "It's Britany bitch" and it was! The Pimp section was rounded off with a delicious VOGUE deeply mashed up with the parping brass and ticking clocks of 4 MINUTES.
The Old School section was my fave - a wonderfully hip-hopped INTO THE GROOVE featured M rocking a go-go pole against a lovely vivid animated backdrop of Keith Haring's figures. As the song morphed into JUMP Maddy even showed us she is a Double Dutch champion! After HEARTBEAT she gave us a delicious surprise - BORDERLINE reinvented as a guitar anthem - and it worked! SHE'S NOT ME ended up with the coup-de-theatre of M confronting four dancers dressed in iconic outfits from the videos of Material Girl, Like A Virgin, Express Yourself and Vogue. She roughed them up and staggered back to the stage in time for MUSIC steeped in early 80s street beats with track-suited bodypopping dancers.
After a powerful DEVIL WOULDN'T RECOGNISE YOU - the latest of her great anthemic ballads - came SPANISH LESSON (still don't like the song) but then we got a great MILES AWAY. I take it back... *this* is her latest great anthem ballad! LA ISLA BONITA followed in the Romany style she previewed at the Live Earth show which was enormous fun, whirling and swirling with a gypsy band and dancers. This segment ended with the surprising inclusion of YOU MUST LOVE ME from 'Evita' which again found the audience stilled by another great vocal - needless to say at the end when she paused before the last word she got affirmation from us. By the way her outfit for this segment was my favourite of the evening,
A remix video of GIVE IT 2 ME came next with 'get stupid' sung over footage of Hitler, Mugabe... and John McCain - can't wait to see how that goes down in the US - especially as the forces of good include Obama... and Oprah!
The last segment started with an oddly lacklustre 4 MINUTES swiftly eclipsed by a stunning LIKE A PRAYER here transformed into a rave anthem. Madonna then strapped on the guitar again for RAY OF LIGHT and HUNG UP and the whole show was rounded off with a thumping, impassioned GIVE IT 2 ME.
I was left on such a high I didn't even mind having to wait an hour for the cab Owen had booked for 11.40 to crawl around the Stadium due to the total logjam of cars.
With a day to reflect on the experience I do have only two criticisms: my main problem with the show was I would have liked a little more engagement from Madonna. At times the show felt a bit soulless - true she did a little chat between RAY OF LIGHT and HUNG UP while giving us a quick version of EXPRESS YOURSELF to sing along to but it would have been nice for the tightly-scripted show to have been deviated from a bit - it's her adopted home town after all! I could also do with less of the rock goddess shtick now - it's ok for a couple of songs but each segment of the show featured a moment when the guitar was strapped on. It's odd that while the last two albums have been more dance-orientated that her concerts are featuring the axe more and more. Oh and this was the first Madonna gig that will not be represented in my t-shirt collection - they were all a bit blah.
But these niggles aside she still gave a fantastic show and she's still my idol. When's the dvd out?
What with the flurry of activity that has surrounded Owen going into hospital for another back op I have not had a chance to rave about the glory that was the X-Ray Spex reunion gig at the Roundhouse on Saturday. Like.... wow!
Poly Styrene has always been a bit of a heroine of mine, a genuinely original voice and a living example of the punk ethos that was liberation across race and gender. Of course it didn't actually pan out like that but it was a time when anyone could make their mark and was there a more day-glo mark than the Spexters?
In their world of shrink-wrapped, shiny, plastic disposable consumerism Poly was the focal point - a short, half English-half Somali girl with braces on her teeth with a voice like a police-siren singing songs of a wipe-clean world where emotions struggle to set free. There was no one else like her.
The Spexters blazed brightly for three years before Poly left the group due to exhaustion. For such a short-lived band with 5 singles and 1 album - none of which made the top 15 amazingly - their memory has been fondly remembered and the album GERM-FREE ADOLESCENTS has always remained in print.
I saw them once at the first Rock Against Racism gig in April 1978 where Poly surprised the crowd with a mumsy jacket and skirt and a scarf wound round her head so I was excited to see how they would present themselves now.
After the rather oppressive atmosphere at Hammersmith for the Sex Pistols the feeling at the Roundhouse was one of bubbling expectant excitement. Out of the darkness a quiet voice said "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard but I think.... OH BONDAGE UP YOURS!" and with a blaze of light we were off on a non-stop charge into X-Ray Spexland!
Poly was resplendant in a black dress and a shocking pink scarf-belt, big clumpy boots and a pink sequined beret, full-figured and with long dark hair - she looked great! Both her and us spent the next hour or so grinning madly and belting out their classic anthems. She kept waving and saying hello and seemed genuinely happy to be there - as were we.
The band's sound was delightfully rough and chaotic and Poly's voice still had the power to knock down doors! My highlights were a mighty IDENTITY, a tranquil GERM FREE ADOLESCENCE, ART-I-FICIAL, LET'S SUBMERGE, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING was as gloriously balmy as ever, HIGHLY IMFLAMMABLE and a storming version of I AM A CLICHE which had the crowd at the front of the stage seething, pogoing, moshing and surfing.
And of course she finished with THE DAY THE WORLD TURNED DAY-GLO. But we clapped and stomped for more so we were treated in true punk-style to OH BONDAGE and DAY-GLO again! If a song is worth doing....
So there you go, even a long schlepp home and an eternity waiting for a poke of chips did not dampen our pleasure at seeing and hearing Poly 30 years down the line, still as vibrant and now as ever!
By the way the good news is that Owen is possibly due to be allowed home today from St. George's in Tooting. So... in on Sunday, op'd on Monday, out on Tuesday. I'm sure if they could do the op through your letterbox they would.
I have looked into the heart of a murderer tonight and it was dark, glittering, frighteningly alluring... and a little like I expected.
Tonight Owen and I saw the London debut of Matthew Bourne's new production DORIAN GRAY at Sadler's Wells - which should be retitled Bourne's Wells as his revivals regularly pack the place to the rafters.
Adapted from Oscar Wilde's only novel this is just the latest incarnation for the beautiful but deadly Dorian - IMDB lists 16 film or tv productions, the latest filming right now with Ben Barnes (Narnia's Price Caspian) and Colin Firth (Rupert Everett must have a sicknote).
Bourne's GRAY is set in the London of Now. Dorian (Richard Winsor) has everything that is needed to succeed - the anonymous good-looks of a model, the Beckham crop, a body to die for (and some do) and no morality. Discovered by fashion photographer Basil (Aaron Sillis) serving drinks at a media party for the soignee fashion arbiter Lady H (Michela Meazza), Dorian is soon stripped and posing for the camera in Basil's studio. Soon he and Basil are locked together on the studio floor. Lady H moulds him into The Next Big Thing and soon he is the face of Immortal Pour Homme. 
A media sensation Dorian is the one everyone wants to be seen with and he is soon involved in a glacial relationship with Lady H, a waning relationship with Basil and a relationship with a pretty but shallow ballet dancer. Through it all Dorian glides, his face a blank, as everyone he meets is in thrall to the power of his celebrity. But when his dancer lover overdoses at a party Dorian watches impassively, his only response to pull the phone cord out of the wall as his lover dies across their bed.
But time is moving on and Dorian is haunted by a doppelganger who he glimpses where ever he goes. Same clothes, same crew-cut, same face... only maybe less jaded, more innocent. Dorian's trajectory into his own dark murderous world culminates in him confronting himself before being immortalised forever one more time...
Matthew Bourne has said with this work he was looking to create something darker, something to prove he is not just the populist blockbuster creator of SWAN LAKE, NUTCRACKER! and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. He has certainly succeeded. It is a chilly, bleak distilation of Wilde's theme of the treacherous beauty destroying those who come too close and Bourne finds much to reference in today's empty vacuum of celebrity worship and the cynical media world - the glitterball at the club Dorian goes to is a rotating sparkling skull.
Ultimately though I felt a trifle hollow too and unsure at times what I was watching - as there is no portrait as such apart from a peeling billboard of Dorian, there is nothing ultimately for Dorian to hide so his murders are just random - was it DORIAN GRAY I was watching or a dance version of AMERICAN PSYCHO? A strong first half leads to a rather muddy second half where I found myself hoping one of the main performers would speak - just to give their characters some defining purpose. Ultimately I was a bit disappointed in the choreography. There were lots of Bourneisms but they seemed remembered snatches from previous productions. There was a lengthy scene set in a club in the second act and I found myself thinking that it could in fact be a routine from a Kylie show while she had a costume change. Maybe I was expecting too much?
The star of the evening is of course Richard Winsor who is rarely off the stage and is certainly charismatic - I also liked him as the sexually confused garage worker in THE CAR MAN so it was good to see him in a larger role. Sadly Michela Meazza is given nothing to do as his powerful patron other than slink and drape over chairs and beds. Aaron Sillis was certainly energetic as the hapless photographer Basil but again I felt he was not strongly defined as a character. A special shout to Jared Hageman as Dorian's watchful doppelganger who had several moments in the second half to shine. The small company doubled and tripled up acordingly and were all fine. Lez Brotherston's revolving wall set was cleverly conceived and there was a nice slow reveal towards the end to show the extent of Dorian's descent into madness. Terry Davies' score was an intriguing mixture of dance beats and electronica with rock elements. I bet the Bourne doyennes had their denture rattled.
Ultimately I think that in his understandable striving to strike out into new more sombre areas, Matthew Bourne might have just overlooked that certain spark which makes him such a creative genius.
I have tickets to see it again in a week's time so maybe it will fall into place more with a second viewing.
So my big news is I left my job of nearly four months on Friday.
A commute of 90 minutes to and from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire was just not doable anymore. The annoying thing, Constant Reader, is that on paper and Transport For London website it is.
But in practice it equates to:
2 buses = 90+ mins
2 BR trains & 1 tube train = 90+ minutes
What with the travel, the stress that it provokes and my desk-bound job I have felt sluggish, depleted and under-par and this has been reflected in my diabetic assessments so it's probably for the best that I leave now and stop putting it off.
Now I realise this is not the best time to look for a new job but I am hoping for an 'out time' of a less than a month like in April. I bloody hope so anyway.
So below we have my final arrival at Elstree & Borehamwood Station, the view across the shopping park to the business centre (you're all sad you don't work there now eh?), my last Cappuccino from Cafe Nerro - no Polish girl knowingly not employed - and me taking my leave at 5:30pm of the Kinetic Business Centre.
Gizza job?
It was with some sadness that I heard about the death of comedy producer Geoffrey Perkins on Friday.
I first noticed him in the series KYTV and he then went on to be creatively involved in such favorite shows of mine as SPITTING IMAGE, FATHER TED, THE THIN BLUE LINE, HAPPINESS and THE FAST SHOW.
He was also a frequent visitor to Flashbacks and I always found him to be a genuinely nice man, friendly and engaging.
The details of his death are still not exactly clear but it is currently believed he fainted on Marylebone High Street and fell into oncoming traffic which is shocking. My sympathies go out to his family and close friends.
In what has been quite a momentous week I have been taken away from the cares of the world by a couple of theatrical outings.
On Tuesday I finally got to see THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY at the Olivier Theatre. I have been meaning to see this but Dawn's recent visit spurred me on to action. She is such a trailblazer.
I love a good Jacobean tragedy which 86s most of the cast by curtain fall and this one I had never seen before. It has had a strange past: written in 1606 it was attributed to Cyril Tourneur nearly 50 years later but more recently it has been re-attributed to Thomas Middleton and that is who the NT is going with. Amazingly it appears not to have been produced for over 300 years - possibly due to it's bleak content - until being revived during the 1960s. The play was inspired by HAMLET and it's revenge motif is certainly obvious but where as Hamlet had only Claudius in his sights with others becoming collateral damage, here Vendice is happy to see off any of the family.
It certainly shows a rotten society: A corrupt 
lecherous duke rules an Italian city with his second Duchess who he has recently married. The disfunctional family includes the duke's son, as perverse as the father who also has an illigitimate son who hates the Duke for his reduced state. The Duchess' three sons from a first marriage are no better, the two eldest are both desperate to rule and the younger is a swaggering rapist. When he rapes a nobleman's wife the Duke orders him imprisoned which angers his wife into starting an affair with his bastard son for revenge. How unlike the home life of our own dear Queen.
Above all the Duke is hated by Vendice whose betrothed was poisoned nine years earlier by the ruler when she refused his advances as well as ruining his dead father financially. Vendice is obsessed with thoughts of revenge, even going so far as keeping Gloriana's skull in his room. The chance comes when his more pragmatic courtier brother tells him the Duke's son has asked him to find someone with no morals to seduce a virgin for him. Vendice leaps at the chance and disguises himself as chav-like Piato. His pleasure is short-lived however - the Duke has set his sights on Vendice's young sister Castiza.
This sets the characters on a frantic, hurtling journey into the heart of darkness as plot and counter-plot crash into each other 
and leaves a trail of dead bodies in it's wake. The play features one of the most famous moments in the tragedy genre when the disguised Vendice traps his enemy The Duke who has asked him to find him a young virgin. He is lured to a darkened room where he kisses the face of the quiet demure girl and is gripped with pain. Vendice then reveals to him he has kissed a mask covering the poisoned skull of Gloriana.... and that's just before the interval!!
On the whole I enjoyed this production, it was fast-paced and the surprising black comedy hidden within the mordant text was excellently played but director Melly Still, like so many others, distrusted the audience's capacity to understand the text so the opening tableaux featured the three-roomed standing set revolving to thumping techno music while the cast cavorted and perved around & around the set showing us just *how* decadent the court was. It was all rather obvious and seemed to go on for ages. The climactic dance of death was also staged as a contemporary dance piece with them flying all over the place which again just seemed too obvious and disrupted the tension that had been built up till then.
The cast made the night worthwhile in particular Rory Kinnear as Vendice. Swiftly changing from the embittered Vendice to the oi-oi Jack The Lad of Piato, he dominated the evening and was the perfect central figure to hold the attention. Just one thing... why did he sound *exactly* like Simon Russell Beale?? I was half-convinced SRB was in the wings with a microphone! 
He was matched by a brace of excellent supporting performances - Barbara Flynn was great as Vendice's mother who shocks him when she gives in to Piato's bribery for her daughter, Elliott Cowan was nice and sleazy as the Duke's oldest son, Tom Andrews gave a great scene-stealing turn as the Duchess' scheming eldest son, Billy Carter had good fun as the Duke's aggrieved illegitimate son, Katherine Manners was effective in the always-difficult role of the virginal good girl, Ken Bones - making a belated debut at the NT - made a very nasty Duke and Jamie Parker was very good as Vendice's brother and partner in vengeance.
I suppose you could say that as Vendice plays a role to fulfil his destiny so did Kenneth Williams. I remember back in the 80s seeing an edition of GIVE US A CLUE where Williams was one of the guests. He was given a charade to do which his team didn't guess. When asked what he had mimed he said something like "Life Of The Party". Parky then corrected him saying it was something like "She's The Life Of A Party" and Williams launched a furious tirade at him. It was a disquieting moment - the happy smiley face of light entertainment turned into a glaring snarl. With the publication of The Kenneth Williams Diaries five years after his mysterious death this real face behind the comedy mask was revealed for all to see.
On Thursday, thanks to Dawn's entrepreneurial spirit, David Benson reprised his 1996 one-man show THINK NO EVIL OF US 
at the Vauxhall Tavern. The one-man show explores a tenuous link between the two performers. In 1975 the teenage Benson had a story accepted for the tv series Jackanory which was read by Kenneth Williams. The show is as much about the life-changing circumstances that year in Benson's life as about Williams. Although physically unlike the star, David Benson brings him to life with the swoops and honks of that astonishing voice and by adopting the Williams posture, tightly clenched and preening. The climactic scene of Williams terrorising a restaurant dinner party is a real tour-de-force.
Benson was captivating, handling what could have been a tricky crowd in a trickier venue with ease. It is a tribute to his stagecraft and performance that he can play a difficult scene such as one where his mother is taken away to a mental home and pitch it just right so that you could hear a pin drop in the Tavern.
I should add that these two potentially depressing shows were separated by a quick trip to Kingston, Jamaica via the Playhouse to see the still-excellent THE HARDER THEY COME. The production is due to close in about two weeks time so I urge you to see it if you haven't done so.
This is my fourth time seeing this amazing show and the cast are still giving 110% - amazing too as they had played a matinee in the afternoon.
It's a boss production y'know.
So the 16 days of the Beijing Olympics are over. Jiang
Yimou's opening and closing ceremonies were astonishing with huge spectacle but with small telling moments that linger in the mind.
How refreshing it has been to see sportsmen and women who have all shown genuine happiness, humility and common sense when interviewed, whether they were successful or not. How sad that now the spotlight will swing back to the overpaid, preening, scowling, prima donnas of football who so often under-perform on the international stage.
By the way how strange that the complaints of human rights abuses and Tibet etc. kinda stopped when we started winning medals?
My quote from the last day? Steve Redgrave talking about the over-zealous security checks which made waiting time for non-media ticket-holders up to 45 minutes "This has been a real chink in their armour". Ooops.
This afternoon Owen and I stepped back in time and to quote Simone Signoret's autobiography "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be". We went to the Menier Chocolate Factory to see the first London revival of the 1978 Neil Simon/Marvin Hamlisch/Carole Bayer Sager musical THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG. The show has not been seen in London for 26 years. I guess all good things must come to an end.
It started as it meant to go on with an outdoor rave happening next door so the auditorium was rattled by the thump-thump of the dance music. Proceedings were held up for about ten minutes while the police were called, despite them not having a licence the best that happened was a couple of speakers were turned off and the show started. Well, we got the first scene... then director Fiona Laird appeared and there was another break while they tried to quieten the neighbours again to no avail. Despite the offer of a refund or replacement tickets for later in the run, the mainly elderly audience voiced their Dunkirk spirit and voted for the show to continue.
Vernon Gersche (Alistair McGowan) is a hugely successful songwriter with Academy and Tony Awards - just like Marvin Hamlisch - who is unsuccessful in love and Sonia Walsk (Connie Fisher) is an upcoming pop lyricist - just like Carole Bayer Sager - who are paired by their agents to collaborate on some songs. Soon they are involved romantically - just like Hamlisch & Bayer Sager. But guess what Constant Reader? The course of true love doesn't run smoothly. By the time of the London opening Hamlisch and Bayer Sager had split up, leaving us with this musical testament to their relationship. Cheers.
Frankly I am at a loss as to why it's been revived. It is another in the canon of shows where great individual talents combine to produce a not-so-great piece. I have always liked the bouncy title song and the first two songs are promising - the ballad FALLING and uptempo WORKIN' IT OUT are good show songs but the rest of the Hamlisch & Bayer Sager score is blander than the blandest thing - these people are supposed to be fantastic songwriters for God's sake. In the first scene Sonia gushes that the only person comparable to Vernon is Stephen Sondheim. Yeah, right. It's interesting to note that THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG opened during the same Broadway season as SWEENEY TODD.
Neil Simon's book is woeful - what should be wisecracks full dead to the stage and just sound facile. The idea of an offstage character is annoying too. Sonia's ex-boyfriend is dragged into every scene as a way of causing conflict between them in an absurd way - so the character is expanded to fill any turn in the plot - he's left her, he's back, he might have taken an overdose, he is in LA, he's in the same hospital, he's actually not a bad bloke.... Augh! Simon also has the bright idea of providing a possible Greek chorus of three alter-egos for the two characters but never utilises them to do anything but provide backing vocals.
Silk purses have been made from sow's ears before but it's difficult to know where to start with what is wrong with this production but you have to start with the fact that McGowan and Fisher have zero charisma. McGowan is giving us a nerdy Woody Allen character pitched low while Fisher is giving an over-the-top, cartoon character pitched way Up HERE. It really is an annoying performance - she is giving us zany and kooky with flapping hands and all you want to do is have her sectioned. In a big argument scene towards the end Sonia accuses Vernon of not treating her like a human being - it would help if she had suggested one in the previous scenes. She certainly sings sweetly but that sadly isn't enough. Still, the audience I suspect was full of people who see her as the People's Diva so she was clapped loudly. Left to me she would have been clapped in irons... it would have stopped those am-dram hands.
Fiona Laird's production runs out of steam and falls back on ramping up the 70s setting - to annoying effect. When you are putting all your energy into the set design then it shows distrust of your material. The wigs are vile - sadly Our Connie has to play her big dramatic scene with what appears to be a cowpat on her head - and the design is BOB - Beige, Orange & Brown. We lived through it once, we don't need to again.
The Menier has now a good reputation for staging musical revivals - SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES - I can think of plenty of shows that are worth being revisited - surely one read-through should have shown the production team this wasn't one of them.
On Friday night I witnessed a singer drugged off her head, falling over on stage and living her offstage life for all to see. See Amy Winehouse, your shtick ain't new. Owen, Sharon & Eamon joined me in the front row of the Donmar circle to see the 30th anniversary production of Pam Gems' play PIAF.
The original production made a star of Jane Lapotaire and co-starred Zoe Wanamaker and Ian Charleson and had it's London debut at the same theatre. I saw Elaine Paige in the 1993 London revival and now we have a revised version starring Argentinian actress Elena Roger.
It was a bit of an odd evening. As fine as it is to celebrate it's 30th anniversary, it comes a scant year after Marion Cottilard's Oscar-winning role in LA VIE EN ROSE. Now the film has problems - it seems to last 27 years for a start - but at least it gives significant weight to certain events in Piaf's life, in particular her relationship with boxer Marcel Cerdan, the great love of her life. The play, um, doesn't. It's written with short hard-hitting scenes to be played by a small cast of actors playing about 4 speaking parts each. Now for a reason known only to himself the director Jamie Lloyd has the play performed at breakneck speed which raises more problems than it solves with it's running time of 95 minutes. The original was over 2 hours!
The scenes whizz past at a rattling rate leaving you sometimes flailing with actors meeting themselves going off as they come back on. The worst moment for this being when an actor playing her husband who caused a car crash she was injured in assaults her in a hospital, walks off then reappears in the same costume but now playing the proprietor of the Olympia arguing with Piaf's manager! The afore-mentioned relationship with Cerdan is covered in a scene of Edith watching him box then a post-coital scene - and that's it. At times I felt like I was watching a staged trailer for the film. With the male cast kept so busy it's hard for any of them to make much of an impression but Luke Evans as an oddly-characterised Yves Montand has great fun with his painful country & western number and Leon Lopez has a calming presence as her last husband Theo. The supporting actresses have more chances to shine: Lorraine Bruce is an outrageously bawdy Toine, Piaf's streetwalking friend and Katherine Kingsley is a (very) tall & practical Marlene Dietrich.
But of course the show has at it's centre a blazing performance by Elena Roger.
There have been some reviews which peeved that the show is just a tour-de-force for Roger.... but when you're playing Edith Piaf that's what you have to give - what would be the point of seeing the play if the actress in it gave a merely adequate performance? To make the play work you need a huge blazing performance and Elena Roger seizes the part and pours everything she has into it.
I never saw her performance in EVITA a few years back but here she gives a remarkable performance for it's sheer physicality, she is rarely off-stage and she throws herself into the onstage shagging and being knocked about by her early lovers to the later years of crippling pain and morphine addiction. It is admirable that she never attempts to play Edith for sympathy - which would go against the grain of the script anyway - and of course she interprets the songs well
although she does not have as natural a belt as Piaf had.
The show has sold out at the Donmar unsurprisingly but there is talk of a transfer to a west end theatre possibly later in the year.
Constant Reader, I have been running hither and yon this week that I can only stop for a few minutes - somewhere someone is being told "Beginners on stage please" and I have to be out front for them. This week I have seen two American lady singers who spookily enough both start with A... and now I think about it, one ain't that much of a lady!
First off the rank was Alela Diane at the Roundhouse... but a Roundhouse with a difference as curtains had been hung around the pillars inside the main auditorium making a more intimate space with tables and chairs in front of the stage surrounded by bleacher seating (where we were). all bathed in atmospheric red light.
The support was The Cave Singers, three odd-ball guys from Seattle with a sort of grunge-zydeco sound - bizarre but easy enough to sit through.
Truth be told I am not the world's biggest Alela Diane fan - Owen is in the running for that award - indeed up until that night I had only heard a few songs on MySpazz.
I can't say that I'm going to be helping Alela's cd sales as I am afraid folk music kinda leaves me unmoved but I can certainly appreciate the clarity of her remarkable voice, the intensity she brings to her song-writing and her charming manner on stage.
Then it was time for the big kahuna... Miss Amanda Palmer at the ICA. This was only about the fifth time I have ever been there, the atmosphere of rarefied ponce can be a bit overwhelming. I was curious to see her again as she would be concentrating on her new solo material which kinda passed me by at Bush Hall last year but they sounded a lot better this time out... She has inhabited the songs more now and sings them with a greater conviction.
All lingerie-d up like some turn of the century tart, she started off miming to a Ben Folds song while doing a Bob Dylan and holding up words on cards which she then buzzed into the audience.
Amanda is showing signs of being a great belter. When she wants to turn up the volume, her voice is still travelling when it hits the back wall but her repertoire also includes introspective numbers which shows her full range.
She included Dresden Dolls classics like COIN-OPERATED BOY and HALF JACK as well as new songs such as the moving AMPERSAND, the glam-rock stomp of LEEDS UNITED and the magnificent STRENGTH THROUGH MUSIC about a high school student getting ready to kill his classmates. We also were treated to I GOOGLE YOU - a new song co-written with Neil Gaiman - in the style of a 1950s Sinatra ballad. Amanda suggested we imagine her as Ella Fitzgerald for that number.
She also started talking about hearing a song in Edinburgh last year which she assumed was an old standard but which she later discovered was written by Dillie Keane then sang a heartfelt cover of LOOK MUMMY NO HANDS - Amanda meets Fascinating Aida!!
We were treated to encores of Leonard Cohen's HALLELUJAH - which as always outstayed it's welcome - and her own special version of CREEP accompanying herself on the ukelele. This time she jumped off the stage and threaded her way through the audience to clamber up on the mixing desk at the back - she'd get where water wouldn't!! She ended the song among the audience, serenading the foolhardy soul who had shouted out he didn't like Radiohead.
It's been great to see Amanda over the last few years growing in maturity as a performer. She totally owns her space on stage and has an excellent rapport with her audience, chatting and responding to them with a ready wit.
HAVE A HAPPY 50TH, DIVA!
She came, I saw, she conquered...
Still the Icon pre-sale tickets were not too bad - halfway down on the side looking across onto the stage and runway. As usual I had the Mad Cow magnet on and was next to a creature who before it started apologised for all the times she was going to bump into me while she danced. "That's ok" sez I "I was just building up to saying the same to you". And sure enough, everytime she banged into me I banged into her.
Kicking off, like the showcase gigs recently, was CANDY SHOP but that kinda whizzed past in the thrill of seeing her there - in the flesh - as big as a thumbnail! That slammed into BEAT GOES ON featuring a big white cadillac that drove down the runway while Kanye West rapped on the big screens. Next up was a bump'n'grinding version of HUMAN NATURE backed by CCTV footage of a hoodied-blonde trapped in a lift who answered Madonna's last "I'm not your bitch" with "It's Britany bitch" and it was! The Pimp section was rounded off with a delicious VOGUE deeply mashed up with the parping brass and ticking clocks of 4 MINUTES.
After a powerful DEVIL WOULDN'T RECOGNISE YOU - the latest of her great anthemic ballads - came SPANISH LESSON (still don't like the song) but then we got a great MILES AWAY. I take it back... *this* is her latest great anthem ballad! LA ISLA BONITA followed in the Romany style she previewed at the Live Earth show which was enormous fun, whirling and swirling with a gypsy band and dancers. This segment ended with the surprising inclusion of YOU MUST LOVE ME from 'Evita' which again found the audience stilled by another great vocal - needless to say at the end when she paused before the last word she got affirmation from us. By the way her outfit for this segment was my favourite of the evening,
With a day to reflect on the experience I do have only two criticisms: my main problem with the show was I would have liked a little more engagement from Madonna. At times the show felt a bit soulless - true she did a little chat between RAY OF LIGHT and HUNG UP while giving us a quick version of EXPRESS YOURSELF to sing along to but it would have been nice for the tightly-scripted show to have been deviated from a bit - it's her adopted home town after all! I could also do with less of the rock goddess shtick now - it's ok for a couple of songs but each segment of the show featured a moment when the guitar was strapped on. It's odd that while the last two albums have been more dance-orientated that her concerts are featuring the axe more and more. Oh and this was the first Madonna gig that will not be represented in my t-shirt collection - they were all a bit blah.
