Skip to main content

Done and Dustyed.

I'm finding myself sucked in by a documentary about Dusty Springfield on BBC4, when I really should be going to bed. 

It's a programme I've seen before, possibly around the time it was first shown in the late Nineties (around the time when Elton John's hair was its finest bowl shape), yet despite being vaguely familiar, I'm still drawn in, largely due to the wonderful tone to her voice, her effortless performances and the 1960s backdrop, which plays firmly into my court; I was born in the wrong era. 

I'll keep it brief, but the documentary has reminded me of a specific memory I have of my second professional acting job, touring in the Bill Kenwright show 'The Roy Orbison Story'. One of the songs I had to play on the piano in the show was the epic quasi-Bond-like 'I Close my Eyes and Count to Ten', which has a ridiculously overblown exposing introduction. I only had a week to learn the whole musical (which also incorporated playing Please Please Me on a left-handed bass in the guise of my hero Paul McCartney -  but that's another story), but much of that week was taken up with playing the piano intro to myself again and again at any given moment. 

Even when I'd got it down, it never stopped being tense. It's one of those octave-based pieces where, one false move and you switch from Liberace to Les Dawson. The piano was set far upstage-right opposite the drummer stage-left (who was a legend in his own right, having been in the groups 10CC, Pilot and the Alan Parsons Project to name a few), and every night when I got it right, he'd give me a wink and mime a wipe of the brow as if to say "You got away with it" , or a smile if I fluffed a note, that was just as supportive; he was a nice bloke, after all.

Whoever played it on the original record got of lightly as they probably only ever had to do it once. 

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

Comedy That's Worth a Letch.

Today, I nipped to Letchworth to meet with illustrator (and one-time - two-time - comedy poet) Mushybees, to discuss an event Mostly Comedy will act as surrogate parents to as part of Letchworth’s Arts Takeover in a couple of weeks. Months ago he got into contact to see if we’d be up for co-organising a comedy stage as part of Letchworth’s weekend of arts-based attractions in July; something I’d provisionally said yes to, before things got hectic in the lead-up to Edinburgh and we didn’t take it any further. Despite not getting down to the nitty-gritty straight away, we managed to pull a line-up together in a back-and-forth of emails yesterday, leading to me getting Glyn’s blessing and us deciding we’d officially go ahead with it (whatever ‘officially’ means in this context). In reality, it’s not complicated: from 12pm until 6pm-ish on the 22 nd July, Glyn, Mushybees and I will host four Edinburgh previews from four acts (including me), before Nor...

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce...