THE
ARTS
4151 Entertainers
We rarely went to music hall, or anything like that. I did go to the Empire Theatre in Liverpool a couple of times. Once it was to see Johnny Ray, who was the teen sensation with his ‘Cry’ record – and it was the first and only time I have seen bobby-soxers fighting security guards to get to a performer on the stage. In fact I went to see him because he was a good jazz singer.
Much later, when in San Fransisco at the IBM Club, I went to a dinner cabaret at which Mel Torme sang. He was a teen heartthrob in my youth I remember Pat from next door being wild about his ‘In Our Mountain Greenery’; though I didn’t then realize he was a jazz-singer – or that the lyrics were by the great Johnny Mercer. In Frisco he shared the bill with George Shearing, and it was a magical evening.
At the Empire I also saw Ken Dodd, who – then in his prime - was very funny. But I really went to see Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the leading gospel singers, who topped the bill.
Later, Pat and I went to the occasional charity evening; which usually started at 11 pm and ran into the early hours. Best of these was that for the Africa Bureau; which starred such artists as Svetlana Beriosova, Geraint Evans and Dan & Anna Massey – as well as Cleo Laine and the Shadows. But, above all, it was the stars from ‘Beyond the Fringe’, who we later saw in their ground breaking show, who gave us samples of their show which brought the house down. Because it was a much more relaxing environment they really went to town.
Prior to this time, though, revues had consisted of series of ‘sophisticated’ sketches; we had been to one with Stanley Baxter and Betty Marsden.
One oddball, but very inventive performance we saw in at the Saville Theatre was ‘Magic Lantern’, produced by the Czech government for the Brussels World Fair. It combined live work on stage with filmed inserts.
hits