Ned Sherrin’s Review Of Revue
BBC Radio 2, Summer 1996
Episodes Summarised by Emma
Shane
© 2004
Episode 1: Hullo Ragtime (3rd August 1996)
This jolly little series gets off to a flying start with it’s catchy
opening number The Twinkle In Your Eye, sung by the regular
company of Louise Gold, Jessica Martin and Christopher
Luscombe. They follow this up with an enthusiastic excerpt of Everybody’s
Doing It. And continue what is very much an Irving Berlin
oriented theme with what Ned Sherrin refers to as “four rags”,
though I thought there were five. First off Jessica Martin with Hitchykoo,
then it’s Louise Gold’s turn with a rag that might be called Wedding
Ply (Well I don’t know what the title is), she sings it reasonably
well, though her diction is a little off. The two girls then give us an all too
brief burst of When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabama (a
song which has after all been sung on film by such luminaries as: Judy
Garland & Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman & Dan Dailey, not to
mention Mitzi Gaynor & Donald O’Connor). Lastly Christopher
Luscombe possibly joined them for a combination of Waiting For The
Robert E Lee and He Had To Get Out And Get Under,
however, the big strong loud voices of the two women dominated so much it was
hard to hear whether Mr Luscombe was there or not. Ned Sherrin goes on
to tell us about Lionel Moncton’s widow, when went on to marry the Earl
Of Dudley, and then as “we can’t expect Jessica Martin to sing a cheque”
introduces Ms Martin singing Lionel Moncton’s Chalk Farm To
Camberwell Green. This is a very very catchy song, which Jessica does
full justice to, and her accent is needless to say faultless. After Mr Sherrin
has dismissed any early efforts at political satire in revues, it’s on with the
songs, and Christopher Luscombe singing Gilbert The Filbert The
Knut With A K, which if you enjoy P G Wodehouse novels (such as Jeaves
And Wooster) you’ll probably enjoy, for the character singing the song
is a very Bertie Wooster sort of character, well Bertie Wooster was what was
known as a Knut (usually the second son of an Earl, a young man with
enough money to live quite well on without having to do any work). This is
followed by a political joke from Mr Sherrin about
Episode 2: Calling Mr Charlot (10th August 1996)
With Louise Gold as Beatrice Lillie and Christopher
Luscombe as Jack Buchcanan, the episode was all set to be worth
hearing. Like the first episode, this second one gets off to a flying start
with the rousing opening number The Twinkle In Your Eye, sung by
the regular company of Louise Gold, Jessica Martin, and, Christopher
Luscombe. Once Ned Sherrin has given the initial introduction they
follow this up with a medley two songs from Charlot Revue’s K.K.K.
Katie and Winnie The Window Cleaner. Appropriately the
girls are particularly noticeable on these numbers. The first of these, after
all, also goes down in musical theatre history, as one of the first songs the
young Ethel Merman entertained audiences with (she sang it to servicemen
during the First World War). So it is apt to have two such powerful
singers as Louise Gold and Jessica Martin to do it justice. In
the second song, Louise and Jessica each get a little spoken solo, with
Christopher only joining in on the chorus. However, Christopher Luscombe
gets his own opportunity to shine doing his knut act, in a solo, Percy Is
Perfectly Priceless. This was shades of his solo the previous week, Gilbert
The Filbert A Knut With A K. The playboy knut was in early twentieth
century Britain However, this week’s programme is about Andre Charlot,
and the stars (such as Lawrence, Lillie and Buchannan)
that he discovered. So now it’s Louise Gold’s turn to sing a solo, and
represent Beatrice Lillie, with Snoops The Lawyer. As this
is a song Charlot imported from America, Miss Gold (as Ned Sherrin calls
her) sings with an American accent, or two or more, being such a deft mistress
of accents she alters her accent subtly to signify different character’s
speaking, i.e. The Narrator, and Snoops himself. Whether or not her performance
is anything like how the Canadian born Bea Lillie did this song, it is
very Louise Gold, providing her with a good vehicle to demonstrate how
clever she is at singing comic numbers, she knows just when to emphasise a
word, and how much to emphasise it, to get the best effect. After a little historical interlude, in which
Ned Sherrin tells us that it was Bea Lillie who first attempted
to introduce Noel Coward to Andre Charlot, but it was only when
one of Charlot’s backers reintroduced them a year later that the great showman
actually took any notice, we have a Telephone Sketch, with Miss
Gold again taking the Bea Little role, the character Miss Poppy Baker,
who is supposedly asleep in bed, Ned Sherrin does some scene setting
here. On the first telephone call, Louise puts on a cockney accent, pretending
to be the maid (so we get Louise doing an impression or Jessica doing a cockney
accent). Louise is very very skilled at switching accents, as she demonstrates
in this sketch she is marvellous at switching quickly and cleanly between
different accents (and there are moments when Poppy does sound a bit Spitting
Image’s Queen). The next call is Poppy’s friend Maggie (from which we
learn that both ladies are separated from their husbands, but having trouble
getting divorces). The next call is The Police, saying her husband has
committed suicide. So feigning distress, first she rings Maggie, and then her
lover, to tell them. Then the maid enters, all upset because Mrs Straker
upstairs, has just heard her husband has committed suicide, the final call is
the police, and the punch line “Sorry you’ve been troubled.” With the
exception of Jessica’s brief appearance, Louise carried the entire sketch as a
sort of monologue, and proves herself very capable of doing so. What an actress! Next up it’s Jessica (with a completely
different accent) and Christopher in a Noel Coward Blackout about
a husband and wife, where the latter is presumably having an affair with the
milkman. And the next song gives Jessica
her real chance in the limelight, with There’s Life In The Old Girl Yet.
This is yet another quite different accent, she plays an aging actress, and is
quite wonderful in the part. According to Ned Sherrin’s comments, Christopher
Luscombe is supposed to be playing a line-up of chorus boys, but
unfortunately, though reasonably sung, they all sounded rather similar to me.
However, Christopher Luscombe redeems himself with the next number,
representing Jack Buchanan in the classic And Her Mother Came Too.
It’s a good song, which he does justice to. Then he joined forces with Jessica
to sing Silly Little Hill, a pleasant song, and nicely sung, but
not all that remarkable. As with the
previous week, the entrance of the guest, this time Patricia Hodge, was
a bit of a comedown (though thanks to not following a showstopper, it wasn’t
such a drop as previously). Ned Sherrin introduced her saying that
recently one actress had come to symbolise Gertrude Lawrence, namely Ms
Hodge, but while her performance of her two numbers, Parisian Pierrot
and Limehouse Blues may have borne a resemblance to the way Ms
Lawrence had performed them, I felt that for simple, star quality Patricia
Hodge’s Gertrude Lawrence act paled in comparison to Louise Gold’s
Beatrice Lillie; especially as Louise Gold herself has had a
couple of very good goes at making some of Gertrude Lawrence’s material
(the title role in Oh Kay, and that song The Physician
from Nymph Errant) very much her own. The finale is introduced by Ned Sherrin
telling us a bit about the composer Howard Dietz, who described “Revue”
as “High class vaudeville”, he is also alleged to have said “I don’t
like composers who think, it gets in the way of their plagiarism”. For the
finale, the regular company end with a Dietz and Schwartz song,
originally in the Broadway show Flying Colours, and then the
Charlot revue Please in 1933, Get Going Louisiana Hayride.
This is a truly joyous romp of a number, one of the most purely fun numbers of
the episode, and the cast really sound as though they are enjoying it. There’s
a lot of joyous squealing at the beginning of each chorus, some of which sounds
uncannily like a Muppet pig! (Annie Sue needless to say). The two women,
Jessica Martin and Louise Gold come across singing particularly
strongly, and doing a fine job with the accent. Overall an excellent
performance from The Company, Christopher Luscombe provides splendid
backing support, to the ladies, who were rather the stars of the episode.
Jessica Martin demonstrated her considerable range of accents, but was
especially good in There’s Life In The Old Girl Yet, while
Louise Gold proved that amongst her various labels, she might be considered
a latter-day Beatrice Lillie. She sang marvellously on Snoops The
Lawyer, and demonstrated her range as an actress in that Telephone
Sketch.
Episode 3:
Cockie - A Man Of style (17th August 1996)
Right from the start of the episode there seemed to be something missing,
the usual introduction The Twinkle In Your Eye though well sung
appeared to be getting a little tired. Then the company went into Dance
Little Lady. The episode was clearly going to be an elegant one, but it
didn’t seem as invigorating as the first two episodes, or was it the cast? Next
up, Whose Baby Are You sung
sweetly, and pleasantly by Marilyn Cutts and Christopher
Luscombe. From this, I surmised that Marilyn must be substituting for one
of the ‘regular’ women in the company, that might well explain why their seemed
to be a missing element, but who is it? Ned Sherrin’s introduction to
the next number, might provide the answer, he said “It took two artistes to
sing and dance this song in On With The Dance in 1925. Tonight the legs and
larynx of Miss Louise Gold alone will give you another glimpse of empty
twenties flapper society, Poor Little Rich Girl.” So it’s Jessica Martin
who’s missing. However, with Poor Little Rich Girl at last we get
a real sign of life, as the irrepressible Louise Gold is singing a good
solo. Though it is one of those moments where one only wishes one could have
seen her as well as heard her, but as Ned Sherrin said in an earlier
episode “sadly this is the wireless”. Next up a trio of Cole Porter
songs: Wake Up And Dream, What Is This Thing Called Love,
and, the classic, Let’s Do It Let’s Fall In Love, sung by not one
but two men, as Christopher Luscombe has now been joined by Paul
Bentley. They do all three songs well, but then being by Cole Porter,
all are excellent songs. However, the pair particularly shine with Let’s
Do It Let’s Fall In Love, where they pair up so well, they sound as
though they’ve been working together for years. Now it’s time for another solo
from Marilyn Cutts, namely The Wind In The Willows. Again
there’s nothing wrong with the song, although I felt it a bit too operatic for
revue, but it seemed to be symptomatic of most of the episode. Time for the
guest slot, but here two departures, firstly putting the guest slot midway
through the show, and secondly instead of having the guest, Sir John Mills
perform live, they played a recording of him and Frances Day singing A
Little White Room by Beverley Nichols. I was rather interested
to hear a song by Beverley Nichols, because until then I had only heard
of him thanks to Geoffrey Parsons mentioned him, as a notable homosexual
(along with Godfrey Wynn and Castle Ross), in a 1938 song lyric.
I felt that this was the best guest performance so far, perhaps because it was
a pre-record. When Ned Sherrin came to interview the guest, the quality
was maintained, for Sir John Mills was certainly the most interesting
and charismatic guest so far, partly because it was living history, he wasn’t
just relating stuff second hand, he had been there, but partly because he just
has a charismatic personality. I noticed the microphones picked up a lot of
laughing from the assembled company, including one distinctively loud hearty
laugh (which could only be Louise). The guest slot is rounded off by Marilyn
Cutts and Paul Bentley performing a song that Sir John Mills
originally introduced with Joyce Barber, Something To Do With
Spring. Here at last Fascinating Aida’s Marilyn Cutts
finally distinguishers herself with a first rate performance. She handles the
dirty lyrics in this song beautifully.
It’s always nice to be able to follow a good performance with another
good one, so Ned Sherrin introduces the next number with “And now
Louise Gold will liven up a number Cochran thought horribly depressing.”
which is exactly what Louise proceeds to do to the Noel Coward song The
Wife Of An Acrobat. Now at last Louise Gold gets to really
demonstrate her talents. She makes a good job with the accent, Cockney, but a
showbiz one. Her diction (sometimes her weakness) is surprisingly clear. And she
really sings the song as though she means it. She makes it sound like it could
be a song for any wife of the touring performer, not necessarily an acrobat,
through probably either a fit up or circus-type performer. She even manages to
sing the most ironic of lyrics, about her character’s legs, totally deadpanly.
And finally to make them more interesting she also growls some of the later
choruses. Overall the song is just a comic triumph. But Louise isn’t just a
brilliant comedy singer, she can change style and accent very quickly, which
she promptly proves in the next number, also a solo; this time with music by Vivian
Ellis and lyrics by A P Herbert, Other People’s Babies. The delightful accent and indeed the lovely
character Louise is singing this in could well be a forerunner to Mrs
Doasyouwouldbedoneby in The Water Babies. It’s a complete
contrast to the previous number, and truly beautiful. Louise Gold may be
best known as a loud brassy comedy singer, but there is such a lot more to her
singing voice than just that. Time for a sketch, this one is all about A
British Mother’s Flight, and is performed by Christopher Luscombe (as
the interviewer) and Marilyn Cutts (as the aviator). At first I thought
this a rather irritating sketch. But it’s worth paying attention to, because if
you can overcome the rather irritating personality of the Mother, it is very
funny, especially the way the aviator keeps trying to get her sponsor Lord
Merriweather into the conversation. The episode ends with the company singing Let
The People sing, pretty enthusiastically, they are loosening up a bit,
but it is only a bit. Overall I felt that Jessica Martin’s absence from
the company left a bit of a gap, which even the combined talents of new members
Marilyn Cutts and Paul Bentley couldn’t quite fill, good though
they were in some places, such as Something To Do With Spring,
while Paul also shone doing the Cole Porter trio with Christopher
Luscombe. Perhaps it was the dampened down company, perhaps his own
charisma, but Sir John Mills came across much better than the guests in
the previous two episodes. It was left to Louise Gold to really liven
things up, with her three solos. The first though performed to her usual high
standards was not quite a smash. But the second two were super. In The
Wife Of An Acrobat she displayed her comic prowess very well, followed
by a complete contrast with the simply beautiful Other People’s Babies.
Episode 4: Small Can Be Beautiful (31st August 1996)
The episode gets off to a decent start, with the usual intro The
Twinkle In Your Eye sounding quite enthusiastic, but still a bit more
formal than it did in the first two episodes. This is followed by all four
singers singing Back To The Land, although only three of them,
distinctly: Marilyn Cutts, Christopher Luscombe and Paul
Bentley have solos, they all sound pretty good though. The next two numbers
are by Irving Berlin. Marilyn sings What’ll I Do sweetly,
you might call it beautiful, and then Louise Gold sings All Alone
even more beautifully with her rich deep voice making it sound even more
convincing, though she did sing it in a very low key (even for her it
seemed low). This is followed by Christopher Luscombe doing his knut act
again (that had been missing the week before), with I’m Tickled To Death
I’m Single. It’s not as bouncy a song as the first two, but it has
lyrics that are well worth hearing, and his diction does them justice. Moving
on to a combined song and sketch, all four members of The Company edit A
Very Nice Paper. This starts with a scene between Marilyn Cutts
and one of the men (I’m not quite such which one though I think it might be Christopher
Luscombe) as Miss Prism and Mr Prune. Its a very funny sketch. While Prune
and Prism speak in the most refined accents, their newspaper is full of filth.
It’s very funny to hear Marilyn declare, in her classy accent that a rape in
Epping Forrest was “Quite the nicest rape since I’ve worked on this paper”.
But even more hilarious is the second pair Fast and Loose portrayed by the
remaining gentleman (possibly Paul Bentley) and Louise Gold. This
pair with out and out common accents, which both actors are very good at, and
yet their paper is pure and clean and very religious. All in all, to quote
Loose’s line just before the sketch goes into song “It’s bloody good you
know”. It’s hard to follow such a fine song and sketch, but follow it the
quartet do, with two songs on a dancing theme (both by Herbert Farjeon).
First up Pulling Down London. All of them sing it well, and
Louise contrives to use an accent that appears to be a somewhat refined
variation of her own
Episode 5: Oh What A Lovely War (7th September 1996)
The episode kicks off with it’s customary intro, The Twinkle In
Your Eye yet this time it sounds even better than last week, full of
enthusiasm, just the way it should sound, and we soon find out why, Jessica
Martin is back. Continuing with the upbeat manner, they launch into F.D.R
Jones, which is great fun. While Christopher Luscombe and Paul
Bentley sing well, Louise Gold and Jessica Martin do a fine
job with some very strong backing vocals (the kind of thing Louise at least has
a lot of experience of providing). This is followed by Run Rabbit, where
the two women dominate the entire song with their big strong voices. Setting the
scene for the episode, Ned Sherrin narrates how with the outbreak of war
all the theatre’s were closed, and says that when restrictions were lifted The
Windmill (who boasted that “They never closed”) was the first to reopen. A
point not explained in the programme is that in actual fact The Windmill was
the first professional theatre to reopen, and even then it reopened with
the same show that had been running prior to the declaration of war. On with
the episode one of the guys sings How Beautiful You Are. It is a
sweet but unremarkable song, though he sings it well. Ned Sherrin’s
narration goes on to relate how during the Second World War London was
overrun with reviews, and he lists a litany of show names, but they are from
the professional theatre only, (no mention is made of the number of amateur
reviews prevalent in London that time). On with the episode, and a bouncy fun
jovial song called Goodbye Sally sung by Jessica Martin and Paul
Bentley. It’s a love song, but what really stands out about it is how well
Jessica sings it. It’s so good to have her back, she’s really something. Paul sings well enough, but it’s Jessica’s
number. On to a couple more ensemble pieces, sung by all four of the regular
company. First of all The Lads In Navy Blue, this is really a
song for the boys, so the two ladies join in with low voices, somehow I’m not
sure if Marilyn could have done that as well as Jessica did it here, and
naturally, Louise is perfect (because she’s good at going deep anyway). Onto a
tribute to the Air Force, Sailagerra, gives Louise and Jessica a
welcome opportunity for a sweet strong double act, with the men distinctly in
the background. This number also brings to the fore one of Jessica’s great
strengths as a musical comedy performer, she is one of the few people who can
more than hold her own when singing duets with such a charismatic performer as Louise
Gold, and it’s just pure delight to hear them paired up again. The men are
very much in the background again. Of course Musical Comedy is an art form that
throws up many surprises, not least of which is unlikely performers of it, and
one such, as Ned Sherrin’s narration tells is, was Miss Edith Evans.
One day at a railway station, she noticed a group of East End women setting off
to go hop picking in Kent, and this gave her the idea for a hop picker’s
sketch, London Can Take It, which is performed in this episode by a
guest, whom Ned Sherrin introduces as “a mixture of comedy and
pathos” Julia McKenzie. For once he is actually spot on. Julia
McKenzie makes a super guest artist in this series. At last we have a guest
who delivers a performance that actually meets the high standard of the regular
company, and with such terrific comedy performances as Louise Gold and Jessica
Martin around, that in itself is quite a challenge. But rise to it Julia
McKenzie does, delivering the hop pickers monologue brilliant, with spot on
timing, and a jolly convincing cockney accent of just the right era. She really
did sound just like people in the East End would have sounded in the mid
twentieth century. Continuing the episode, Ned Sherrin has a few things
to say about Eric Maschwitz’s lyrics, and puts on record (as the
lyricist told it to him) Eric Maschwitz’s story about asking a stage
doorman in Lewisham how the show Goodnight Vienna was doing “About
as well as Goodnight Lewisham would do in Vienna”; and then Jessica
Martin sings a classic song with Maschwitz lyrics, originally introduced by
Judy Campbell, A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square. Julia
Mckenzie’s excellent monologue might be a hard act to follow, but Jessica’s
always good at rising to that particular sort of challenge (she is one of the
few people I’ve ever seen who really can follow a showstopper, no matter who it
is). Jessica may be a fine mistress of voices, but (like Louise), she can also
be a genuinely delightful sweet subtle singer. This is followed by Paul
Bentley’s moment to shine, singing One Of The Whitehall Warriors.
It’s a fun number, which he does justice to, though it almost got a little lost
sandwiched between Jessica’s solos. Yes Jessica sang the next number, A
Piccadilly Daffodil, a song included because it was from a show at The
Windmill, and as Ned Sherrin said, they had to include one song from
that theatre. With this song Jessica is like a breath of fresh air, she does a
great cockney accent, and she really sounds like she means every word of it.
However, according to Ned Sherrin’s narration the great defining sound
of sophisticated world war two revue was Hermione Ferdinada Gingold. As
she was a statuesque woman, and noted for her comedy singing (sometimes with
her own ideas on how to alter lyrics), perhaps makes sense that for this radio
programme her contribution to the genre is represented by another statuesque
comedy singer-actress, Louise Gold singing one of Herionie Gingold’s
great hits The Bourgeois Are Having An Orgy. And of course Louise
Gold is utterly magnificent. Until this moment in the episode she might
have seemed a little underused (except she didn’t because one was too busy
enjoying Jessica’s performance), but now she steps into the spotlight and
sparkles. One of our great contemporary comic singers, she knows just how to
handle this number, with a disarming subtlety, and yet making it clear she
knows exactly what she is doing with it. As a tour de force this is shear
brilliance. It was just as well it was saved to last, as a doubt if even
Jessica could have followed that! And so the episode ends in the best possible
way, with the entire company singing the lovely lively I’m Gonna Get Lit
Up. I really like that song a lot, but I particularly enjoyed its
rendering by this company, and it ended with one of them (quite possibly
Louise) holding a strong long note. All
in all a superb episode. In many ways I think it was the best episode of the
entire series. I have one very minor comment on the content, namely that no
mention was made of the notable contribution made by amateur theatre (such as
London’s Unity Theatre) to the
world of revue at this time. However, in a half hour episode one can’t cover
everything. And the material that was covered was uniformly excellent. It was
also brilliantly performed by the entire company. For once the company truly
had a guest whose talent was worthy of them, in the form of Julia McKenzie,
whose performance of London Can Take It rivalled the best of
them. But every member of the company was on top form as an ensemble they were
particularly good in: FDR Jones, Run Rabbit, Sailagerra,
and, the joyous I’m Gonna Get Lit Up. Christopher Luscombe
and Paul Bentley provided strong support. Jessica Martin was an
absolutely welcome return and shone throughout the programme, but was
especially good in A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square, and, A
Piccadilly Daffodil. And then there was Louise Gold, who might
initially have seemed a little underused, singing strongly in the ensemble
pieces, but really coming into her own, demonstrating just what so expert a
comedy-singer-actress can do with The Bourgeois Are Having An Orgy.
Overall a terrific episode.
Episode 6: Hullo Satire (14th September 1996)
This final episode opens differently to the previous episodes, with a
rousing song to revive the spirits, Hallelujah from Pieces
Of Eight. This also includes at least one spoken line for each of The
Company, first Louise, then one of the men, then Jessica, and then the
remaining man. The two ladies dominate a little with their powerful voices, but
they use them with a lively sweetness, that is absolutely not in the
least raucous. It’s put across very enthusiastically; the company really are pulling
together to do this number. Indeed its sets the tone for most of the
episode. Next up Ned Sherrin says that by now political satire was beginning
to rear its head (in actual fact the word beginning only applies to
professional revues, as political satire had already been used amateur revues
for quite some time). Anyway, to represent political satire in revue a fine
duet for Paul Bentley and Christopher Luscombe, There’s A
Hole In My Budget. It’s a very funny song, supposedly between the
characters of Harold Wilson and Denis Healy, and one which Ned
Sherrin quite rightly points out has not dated. The characters might be
just about any pair of Prime Minister and Chancellor Of The Exchequer. Next up,
a sketch, introduced by Ned Sherrin as “We employ our entire and
entirely innocent Company in Restoration Piece”. Restoration Piece’s
main joke concerns a group of actors in a restoration comedy not realising that
the S’s in their scripts look like F’s, and thus they keep
reading them as F’s instead of S’s. Hence “Fir Folemnity
Fourpuff” A good deal of the scene setting initial dialog is handled by the
two woman, as a Lady and her Maid. As Lady Fouvent, Louise Gold makes
excellent use of her wealth of experience at delivering a completely
nonsensical script as though it makes perfect sense. Jessica Martin also does very well
with it. Both ladies are, afterall accomplished comedy performers. The two
gentleman do their smaller parts well too, but it is the ladies of the company
who really stand out. Towards the end of the sketch there is one very odd
moment, which from the way Louise Gold delivered the line, I found it
entirely unclear whether it was actually part of the script, or an adlib. The
line was “Fecil, sorry Cecil.” Though it certainly got a good
laugh. Onto the subject of revue writer David
Climbe, we get what I consider to be one of Ned Sherrin’s best
anecdotes, about David Climbe introducing George Wadmore to the
custom of ‘Afternoon Adultery’ at The Regent Palace Hotel. And then it’s into a Climbe song, Peter
Patter, sung by Jessica Martin, with Paul Bentley, though
with Jessica doing her interpretation of Joan Heal, Paul Bentley
hardly gets a look, let alone a word, in, and the audience only get a brief
moment for laughing towards the end. Jessica sings this wonderfully. So
wonderfully, that although I’m not always too keen on the song, I can’t help
but enjoy her performance of it. It’s a real tour de force. I very much doubt
if even Louise Gold could sing this song anywhere near as well as
Jessica does (after all Louise is not exactly a natural fast tempo singer,
whereas Jessica is). For Jessica Martin this song is truly a supersonic
triumph. But Louise Gold has her own tour de force to follow, with Sandy
Wilson’s Out Door Girl. This was originally introduced by Fenella
Fielding, which I find quite impossible to imagine. In my humble opinion I
can’t help but think that Louise’s rendition is probably miles better, she’s a
real gem. Right from the opening lines “Since the age of seventeen, I have
most sincerely been, dedicated to the life I choose” she sounds as though
she means it. (Which is perhaps rather apt for a singer-actress who made her
professional debut in pantomime at the age of seventeen). Though she sticks to
one accent while singing the song, she still manages to be pretty wide-ranging,
switching style several times during the song, to great effect, knowing just
when to emphasis a lyric, and when to underplay it. If we thought that Jessica was pretty stunning
in her solo, well Louise is even more amazing. The trouble is it’s so hard to
follow a true showstopper, and this was no exception. Wisely it was followed
with a sketch rather than a song, an excerpt from Beyond The Fringe,
but it was still a bit of a come down. This was introduced by Ned Sherrin
first moving the history on to the subject of The University Revue. One
bit which stands out in his narration, is the mention of The BBC
televising Oxford Accents from The Oxford Playhouse, whose
then ASM, one Margaret Smith, got spotted, and so began a notable acting
career (well did you know that Dame Maggie Smith started out as an ASM
for a revue at The Oxford Playhouse?). But it is the culmination of the
University Revue, Beyond The Fringe (written by two Oxford
and two Cambridge graduates) that is paid tribute to here, with: Christopher
Luscombe as Alan Bennet, Paul Bentley as Peter Cook, Louise
Gold as Jonathan Miller (whom Ned Sherrin points out
described himself as “Not a Jew, just Jew-ish”), and, Jessica Martin
as Dudley Moore, contemplating The End Of The World. While I
don’t doubt this sketch is funny if you like this particular sort of revue,
somehow it didn’t do very much for me; though I felt that Paul Bentley
and Louise Gold gave good performances, and the others were
adequate. Ned Sherrin goes on to
narrate that Beyond The Fringe, Private Eye, The
Satirical Soho Club, and, The Tonight Show, lead to TW3,
which he claims was the knell for revue. I’m not sure if that is entirely fair
on TW3. However, he moves swiftly on to cover a few more modern
reviews, including The Shakespeare Revue, from which the company
sing In Shakespeare’s Day by Stiles and Drewe. For this
they are joined by the episode’s guest, Malcolm McKee. The only guest
appearance that is a little low-key, however, his performance more than makes
up for that. Apart from Julia McKenzie the previous week, there has
rarely been a guest whose standard of performance actually stood up to that of
the company. If Ned Sherrin had not actually said who’d written it, I
would never have guessed it was by Stiles and Drewe. The tune, while not
particularly remarkable, is reasonably decent, and does not detract from the
lyrics. And it is the lyrics that are
really rather impressive. They also happen to be rather well performed by all
the company, playing the backstage crew and front of house staff of the RSC
(a company which three of them have actually acted in), here we have:
Jessica Martin doing a good job as The Wardrobe Mistress, Christopher
Luscombe as a very funny ice-cream seller (his lines are also a swipe at
commercialism in today’s theatre), Louise Gold sounds very convincing as
the prompter (though her diction is only just about alright), Malcolm Mckee
is also convincing as The Musician (ever since I heard this number on the
radio, whenever Graham Ryder pops up in The Archers, I
find myself thinking of his verse in this song. I also can’t help but wonder
who Stiles and Drew were referring to in the line “Dreamt up by that
composer who’s name I can’t pronounce”), and finally Paul Bentley as
a heartfelt props buyer, he sounds like he’s enjoying getting in a dig a
theatre directors with crazy ideas. And so the episode comes to an end, as it
began, with The Farewell Song from Pieces Of Eight,
a Farewell reprise of Hallelujah! Again sung very
enthusiastically, with the big strong voices of those two ladies dominating,
just like they have the singing in so much of the series. It’s a great high on
which to end the episode and indeed the series. Overall a splendid episode. A
bit different to previous episodes, since it very much focussed on The Company,
rather than their special guest, this time the guest just blended effortlessly
into being one of them. I felt this actually suited the programme much better,
and proved the point, that with such a strong regular company of performers,
the special guests hadn’t really been necessary. This episode is definitely one
of the best. It included some very funny songs and sketches, such as: There’s
A Hole In My Budget, Restoration Piece, and In
Shakespeare’s Day, all of which were expertly performed. There was a
real rouser of a song from Pieces Of Eight, Hallelujah,
and to cap it all, the true stars of the entire series, Jessica Martin
and Louise Gold, were both on top form, and each got her own special
tour de force. Jessica Martin with Peter Patter, and Louise
Gold with Outdoor Girl. All in all a near perfect episode to
end a very interesting and enjoyable series of programmes.
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