THE pumpkins are eaten at last. Hallowe’en is fun, but the relentless procession of roasted gourds, ginger soups and American pie has led our household to re-dub it ‘Better-Not Squash’.
All focus now is on Christmas and panto rehearsals. Our final public cabaret appearance of this year at The Pheasantry in the King’s Road was rammed: an audience that included the Clerk of the Queen’s Closet, the Australian High Commissioner, my Lords Perth and Brockett, the Bishop of Carlisle and Fay Maschler. However, what gave me the greatest delight was that my daughter, Gus, could not attend, because she was simultaneously debuting in her own headline residency at Ronnie Scott’s. The DNA is working.
It would have pleased our ancestress, a 1930s soubrette (genuinely) called Joy Spring. Although I have huge respect for Sheridan Smith, and her terrific Christmas album, I do take issue with her Mad About The Boy. It follows the entirely inaccurate melodic line first botched in the 1960s by Dinah Washington. Coward, who wrote it, would be appalled and Miss Spring, who introduced the song in a Charlot Revue, would sniff. It’s too good a tune to fudge.
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