There was a really excellent documentary on the telly box the other night, a BBC4 survey of how major film stars have had their singing voices dubbed over the years. The most famous exponent of the art is Marni Nixon (still with us at 83) providing Deborah Kerr’s singing voice for The King and I,…
It often amazes me how often people in the media are promoted way above the level of their ability. How did they do it? one asks. The BBC are particularly adept at giving a high profile job to someone of minimal talent. One thinks of Fiona Bruce, the gabbling newsreader who seems to fancy…
There is a gap in the market for a sit-com about a couple of old queens. ‘Viscious’ has all the right ingredients: a failed actor and his long-term partner straight out of Grace Brothers’ department store (‘Suit you, sir’) living in a run-down, faded flat. For stereotype neighbours we have a randy single lady of a…
I came into the kitchen for an early lunch just as the news of Margaret Thatcher’s death was announced on Radio 4, breaking into the final minute of ‘You and Yours’. The continuity announcer was, unfortunately, Neil Nunes, who caught the spirit of the occasion with a cheery ‘OK – that’s an extended News at…
The deaths of Richard Briers and Richard Griffiths have robbed us, far too early, of two of our finest actors. How different they were, the one all nervous energy and crisp delivery, the other avuncular and lugibrious – though such short-hand descriptions hardly do justice to either of them. I would have loved to have worked…
You knew when you were getting older when policemen were the same age as you. The next stage was when people in shops stopped addressing you as ‘mate’ and started calling you ‘sir’. The step after that was when young ladies stood up to offer you their seat in a crowded train. Today you know…
My friend the great Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire sent me this link a few days ago without comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SofSH-Whk&feature=share Here’s my comment. As you can see, it’s an unpublished performance of Liszt’s Totentanz conducted by Rafael Kubelik with Freire as soloist. For me this is the most thrilling, convincing performance of the work I have ever…
vICTORIAN CURIOSITIES was a book I adapted in 1995 from Everybody’s Scrapbook of Curious Facts – A Book for Odd Moments, compiled by Don Lemon in 1890. It’s a sort of Not Many People Know That from a century earlier. My original Little, Brown edition has been out of print for some years, but now a…
A short fanfare and a modest pat on the back is called for – for me! Strange how things happen in groups. This week I have confirmation that my Godowsky biography, Godowsky – The Pianists’ Pianist – is to be republished (Travis & Emery are putting it out sometime in January – the German translation appeared,…
Danny Baker’s wonderful, heartfelt, on-air rant at being sacked from his Radio London show made great listening and rang a few personal bells. Baker is a superb broadcaster, a one-off, quick on his feet and deservedly applauded within the industry. He had a far higher profile than I ever had in the days when I…