Have fun, whatever you get up to.
[click pic to enlarge]
CAMP: "A cornucopia of frivolity, incongruity, theatricality, and humour." "A deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love." "The lie that tells the truth." "Ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals."
Tuesday 31 October 2023
Get the Party Started
Hallowe'en. Samhain. Hop-tu-Naa. Día de Muertos. Calan Gaeaf. Punkie Night. The Season of the Witch.
Sunday 29 October 2023
The world's wrong!
Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main,—
Wail, for the world's wrong!
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
British Summer Time is officially over. Sigh.
No light evenings from now until March...Roll on Spring!
Friday 27 October 2023
Sunday 22 October 2023
Giants of acting
Catherine Deneuve, 80 years old today.
Sir Derek Jacobi, 85 today.
Christopher Lloyd, also 85 today.
All hail!
Friday 20 October 2023
She was a killer Camilla
More sad news today - the very lovely and talented Miss Haydn Gwynne has ascended the glittering stairway to Fabulon.
In her estimable career, she hit peak-time telly success as the arch-cynic "Alex Pates" in Drop the Dead Donkey, was lauded for her stage performances in Billy Elliot the Musical, City of Angels and The Threepenny Opera, and she played "Camilla" in the Channel Four sitcom The Windsors, Margaret Thatcher in The Audience (opposite Dame Helen Mirren), and a character based on Dame Prue Leith in The Great British Bake Off Musical. Phew!
We saw her twice on stage - as "Evangeline Harcourt" in Anything Goes, and her brilliant performances in the Sondheim tribute gala Old Friends
Such a sad loss...
[If you've ever dreamed of Trump getting kneed in the bollocks by Camilla Parker-Bowles, look on...]
RIP, Haydn Gwynne (5th October 1957 – 20th October 2023)
Sunday 15 October 2023
Saturday 14 October 2023
Thursday 5 October 2023
We have no time to stand and stare?
It's National Poetry Day, dear reader.
In recognition of that fact, here is one of my favourites - Leisure by the Welsh poet W.H. Davies, read by the mellifluous Sir John Gielgud:
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
William Henry Davies (3rd July 1871 – 26th September 1940)
Wednesday 4 October 2023
Sunday 1 October 2023
Zig-a-zig-a-zag
Hearing this fabulously camp vocal interpretation of Saent-Saens' spooky orchestral number on BBC Radio 3 the other day just served to remind me just what a genius this lady really was:
[See here for another brilliant version.]A decade ago, I featured a tribute to Madame Cathy Berberian (for it is she) over at my other blog Give 'en the old Razzle Dazzle, and here it is again for your delectation:
Apart from being an accomplished mezzo-soprano, singing everything from Monteverdi to operetta, Lieder and Music Hall numbers - in 36 languages - she also recorded a ground-breaking vocal and electronic experimental album called "Visage" [one wondered where Steve Strange got the idea for his band name] as early as 1961, had music written specifically for her by Stravinsky and John Cage (among other avant-garde artists), translated Woody Allen into Italian with Umberto Eco, did comedic routines to accompany her eclectic cabaret evenings of which Anna Russell would be proud, and owned a collection of French pornographic porcelain to boot!We are proud possessors here at Dolores Delargo Towers of two albums by Madame Berberian, one a 1973 live concert from Edinburgh in which she tackles everything from Saint-Saens, Delibes and Purcell to such Victorian ditties as Father's a Drunkard and Mother is Dead and There Are Fairies At The Bottom Of Our Garden...
The other, even more superbly off-the wall and a definite favourite, is her classic 1967 album Revolution - 'An Operatic First', a collection of Beatles songs done in the Baroque operatic style, believe it or not.
And here, from that very collection, is the lady herself performing Ticket to Ride:
As Mark Swed, writing in the LA Times said, "She did it all. Check her out."
Read more about the splendid Cathy Berberian at the ever-wonderful Dangerous Minds website.
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