The Show’s The Thing (or how Adelaide Fringe created a Siren)

Tags

adelaide fringe, cabaret, gown, jema hewitt, ralph bogard, siren, songs, Vintage

When I started to gather songs for ‘Siren’, I wasn’t sure what I was creating. I knew I had to create a new show, ‘War Notes‘ and ‘Songs to Make You Smile‘ have both almost had their day (although, they are open for booking should you be so inclined!). So I knew I had to create something. Now, I work well under pressure, so given a year of procrastinating, moving sheet music from pile to pile and then arranging the piles into alphabetical order and then rearranging them chronologically I started to form the basis of an idea.

My life has been in a state of flux over the last year, I think that many cabaret performers sometimes feel the same. The work is neither consistent nor assured and although I’m often lucky to be busy and in demand, that could change tomorrow. I also had a baby, with all the added pressures and responsibility that he brings along with his toddling and giggling. My husband is often away on tour and marriage is sometimes really tough. No one tells you that when it’s all hearts, flowers and engagement rings.

So I haven’t been in the most creative frame of mind, and yet this show was booked into Adelaide Fringe way back in September. So I had to create something. Anything. I sensed a theme amongst my chosen songs, they were eclectic, but all vaguely nautical. I wanted to do something deeper, more mysterious and more enchanting. It wasn’t easy, but nothing that is worth something comes easy to you. I couldn’t find the flow, I couldn’t find the links and so a very dear friend of mine, Ralph Bogard offered to help me find my way in the darkness. And boy, did he. We worked intensively for two days and it was exhausting both emotionally and physically. We explored the song choices and the reasoning behind them and therein lay the links. Some funny, some feminist and some just plain painful. He forced me to delve deeper and share those locked away emotions and hurts that make the songs real.

I originally wanted a costume that would come apart as the show progressed and my fabulous costumier, Jema Hewitt made me the most amazing disintergrating ‘sea wraith’ dress but once I rehearsed with it, it felt contrived and I couldn’t find the truth in it. So I ditched that idea, grudgingly, let me tell you! So I was costumeless. It was a problem, as one of my techniques to bringing a show together is building from the costume. You find the perfect visual aesthetic and everything else seems to fall into place. I happened to be browsing a vintage store in Auckland and I came across this deep sea blue and green 1940’s gown. It was glamorous but a little tatty, a little fragile, coming apart at the seams – much like me (under the bravado). As soon as I put it on, ‘Siren’ was born.

Now, I’ve spent a month here at the Adelaide Fringe, it’s been really hard work but I have had good friends around to counsel. My ‘work spouse’, Mat Ricardo, has been an absolute rock. He’s been a shoulder to lean on and an ear when I needed to rant, cry or talk and we have also laughed. I think it is always hard when the material you are doing drags up from the depths of your soul the past hurts and emotions that you had locked away in a little box and buried deep. What is the quote from ‘The Go-Between’? – ‘the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there’. The past was a different country, I was a different person. In a way, ‘Siren’ has been a gift of closure of some open wounds which I had just packed with glitter and tit tape – like a cabaret war wound! It’s shown me that emotional honesty onstage can be an incredibly terrifying thing but to be able to share that with an audience and take them on that journey with you is an exhilaration. Through the show, I’ve confronted, literally, those weights laying heavy within me and reaffirmed that in my life that I have made the right decisions, no matter how painful they were at the time.

So my message this morning is don’t be afraid to use your hurts and emotional weak spots to create art. Use them, share them, allow your audience the privilege of seeing deep inside you to where those cuts are still raw. It both hurts more and hurts less as time goes on. We are so caught up in our own fear to fail, our unwillingness to commit, our emotional baggage; how freeing it is to take control of it, harness it and say “Bitch, you work for me now”.  It’s working for me, (so far, I’ve evaded the men in white coats) ‘Siren’ has grown into a fully fledged show and has been incredibly received by audiences (who have bought me gifts of songs and vintage brooches!) and critics alike and for that, I give thanks for my multiple broken hearts and wounded pride.

If you are reading this in Adelaide, you have three more chances to catch the show, get your tickets here. If you are in London, I’m coming to London Wonderground in June and you can get your tickets here.

Love.
Lili. x

Lili’s in the Pink on the Green

Tags

Bendy Bendini, cabaret, circus, contortion, festival, Joe Black, Kotiri Tent, outdoors, Sam Wills, songs, tent, Tony Roberts, Village Green

This weekend, in the sweltering heat of our glorious four day summer (so far, I’m crossing my fingers for more,) I took my beautiful miniature circus tent, The Kotiri Tent, out for a jaunt to a local festival.

Run by a company called Metal, Village Green Festival has been running for four years and is going from strength to strength each year. A fantastic combination of music, art, dance and community and all for free, it is a huge asset to the community here in South East Essex. Since we lost the Southend Airshow, (a daft decision by a stunningly short-sighted council), Village Green is a chance for the local community to get together and celebrate the local arts scene, which is thriving if this marvellous little festival is anything to go by.
It’s always lovely to get our dinky little top out and once we remember how to erect her (we always forget to write instructions and much like an Ikea wardrobe, there are always nuts and bolts left at the end!), she’s a real peach with a warm and welcoming atmosphere for 20 people. Especially warm, when the thermometer goes way up the way it did on Saturday, hitting 30 in the sun.

On the bill we had the nefarious Joe Black, contortion man Bendy Bendini, our spruiker Sam Wills and me, the tent mistress presiding over all and singing songs. We also had street performance maestro, Tony Roberts, who did some killer circle shows to very appreciative, and enormous, crowds.

The audiences were just fantastic. Friendly, open minded, broad spectrum’d and as the afternoon progress, beautifully lubricated by the beer and pimms. We even had a visit from Bismarck, who was riding in my son’s Silver Cross pram.

By the time we had each spruiked, barked and cajoled audiences into buying tickets and done four shows each, we were all exhausted, hoarse and more than a little sticky. Someone of my northern hemisphere skin type doesn’t cope well in the sun, I’m fine between 20 and 23 degrees on a cloudy day!! In fact, in weather like this, I prefer to operate under the cover of darkness!
After we’d finished, we wandered back to chez moi for a well deserved pimms and a BBQ and a chance to debrief, not literally though as we sadly lack a pool! Today, Joe and Bendini made at least 11th page news!

The Village Green Festival was a complete joy and we are already talking about how to top it next year, I’m thinking maybe a full size circus tent. I do hope it is still free for the community next year, although they do need donations to keep running it this way. So if you enjoyed Village Green 2013, show your appreciation. You can text ‘VGFR33 £3’ to 70070 to donate £3, imagine if all of the 30,000 people who came through the gates did that, it would make next year’s festival the one to be at. It’s in your hands, my darlings, it’s your festival, support it.

Lili’s not Cabaret Enough?

Tags

artistic scene, burlesque, cabaret, cabaret festival, ecdysiast, entertainment, festival, musical theatre, performers, songs, variety

This has been a controversial week in the world of London cabaret with the announcement last week of the inaugural London Cabaret Festival. It should have been a day of celebration for Cabarati London, nay world, wide. One of the greatest cities in the world raising a huge mainstream flag for a cause which is a passion for many of us? A godsend, a missive and a portend of the acceptance of cabaret into the wider artistic scene. Mais quelle horreur, ‘twas not to be.
The twitter feed appeared, the PR people rustled their press releases and some little web person somewhere clicked their mouse and the announcement was made. The line-up appearing on their website. Immediately, a sense of confusion reigned, this was not cabaret as we know and love it. This was a selection of big names in musical theatre, singing songs. A facet of cabaret, yes, but not a gin-addled host, juggler, hula hoopist or feathered ecdysiast in sight. Not even a variety show? Confusion turned to indignance turning then to anger. Not because Cabarati hate musical theatre, indeed, I am a passionate fan (and I know I share this with Mr Chris Cox, Miss Mia Merode and many others, though not Dusty Limits who has never even seen Les Mis but I digress) but because in a city where cabaret has fought derision from the mainstream, (remember the Cabariot and the following song ‘Too Cabaret’) for being too ‘end-of the pier’, too sparkly and too cruise ship, it has banded together, risen above and carved a successful niche over the last decade appearing in some of the Capital’s highest profile venues. At the same time, cabaret continues in small rooms atop pubs, basements below restaurants and a thriving community supports and protects its own, as Coco Dubois commented, ‘the people who ARE cabaret, who give their lives to it, who live it, who create the industry on a daily basis, haven’t been invited to the party’
By ignoring every single performer on the London scene, the London Festival of Cabaret (notice the awkward arrangement of those words, mes amis and maybe type a rearrangement into google!) does itself, and cabaret, a huge disservice. I can understand (sort of) the desire of the Festival to have a ‘song book’ festival, surely by any other name it would still smell as sweet? The London Festival of Musical Theatre? The London Festival of Cabaret Song? The organisers say that the festival has ‘an emphasis on celebrating the music, lyrics and interpreters of popular American and European song’ and yet the London Cabaret Scene boasts some of the best song interpreters in the world, for example Dusty Limits, Le Gateau Chocolat and dare I say, me! All have been overlooked in favour of a programme of stars from stage and TV. Last time I checked, Alexander Armstrong wasn’t a cabaret performer but a TV personality who can hold a tune.
I think a great festival is a glorious melange of big names and lesser known gems rather than a roll call of big names designed to create big revenue. London needs a cabaret festival that celebrates every fabulous facet of the glittering scene, a festival where audiences have the chance to discover new work, as well as enjoy shows by artists they know and love. Mind-reader, Alex McAleer, said ‘When I hear the words ‘London Cabaret’ I think of some of the best acts in the world. None of which are represented in this alleged festival celebrating the thriving scene!’
The Festival has received negative feedback from so many of the performers on the cabaret scene but has, so far, refused to engage with its critics although as Amelie Soleil said, ‘Their twitter feed has rebuked with “it’s an inaugural event.” However, surely an inaugural event should be as diverse as possible to generate & nurture audiences to allow for specialisation in subsequent years. It’s a castration of the scene’.  Well respected cabaret performer, Mat Ricardo commented, ‘It’s insulting and ill-thought through, and their refusal to engage with the wealth of negative feedback they’re getting on social media is indicative of their “couldn’t care less” attitude to the genuine cabaret scene in London’.
Feelings are running rather high amongst the Cabarati, with one well-known tap-dancer being blocked by the London Festival of Cabaret for airing her passionate views. I chatted to one of London’s most respected hosts and Double R Club king, Mr Benjamin Louche earlier today, ‘Anything that bills itself as The London Festival Of Cabaret yet refuses to engage with, or make use of, the staggering plethora of the city’s long standing cabaret scene is willfully marginalizing itself, as well as its understanding of the genre; and is insulting those who have worked, and continue to work, so hard to keep the industry going. With its stupefying lack of variety, TLFOC is the very antithesis of true cabaret. It’s like an event billing itself as The London Festival Of Circus and only putting clowns on the bill. Shameful and idiotic.’
So from being ‘Too Cabaret’, it now appears we are ‘Not Cabaret Enough’ and in the words of hugely successful cabaret queen, Frisky of Frisky & Mannish, nobody saw that coming.

Lili Wants to Make You Smile

Tags

photoshoot, richard healey, road trip, sausage dog, songs, songs to make you smile, terry mendoza, Vintage, vintage songs, What Katie Did

This week was the first time I have done a tour show since I had Rafferty. We had a show of ‘Songs to Make You Smile‘ booked in to the Swindon Arts Centre and so on Wednesday morning we were up at silly o’clock to get everything ready. In my carefree ‘old’ life, I’d sling a bag in the car and head off. Now, leaving the house, involves packing almost everything minus a kitchen sink. We decided to add a sausage dog to the equation too, why make life simple?

We stopped along the way to p p pick up a pianist! Mr Richard Healey was on keys for this show, which is always a treat because he’s bloody super. We ended up running late, which I hate, so when we made it to Swindon Arts Centre they were concerned that we had forgotten! After explanations of ‘child, dog, traffic!!’ we got to the auditorium for a soundcheck. Dickie and I have soundcheck down to a fine art, literally 3 minutes to check mics and lights. This show, we decided to chuck in a new song to amuse ourselves, (slightly risky, given that I’ve just had three months off and the last tour show we did was in November!!) so we had a quick run through of ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat’ and we were happy with it.

Backstage, I threw make-up at my face, chucked my hair into an updo, ripped my dress as I dragged it on over my new best friend, my What Katie Did spoon bust Morticia corset and had 10 minutes to breastfeed Rafferty before it was showtime! So I hit the stage slightly flustered but it was fabulous to get back into the swing of things. The show was really marvellous, with a really supportive audience and the new song went beautifully, in fact, it might be my new favourite!

This afternoon, I had a photoshoot with the amazing Terry Mendoza. I absolutely adore shooting with him. We just click, if you’ll pardon the pun! We shot a couple of new costume pieces (a fabulous hat and some Elizabethan-style collar and cuff ruffs) and tried to shoot some pictures of Rafferty, who was having absolutely none of it. Every photo had him screaming or burying his head in my shoulder. After 10 minutes, we gave up!

In other news, Rafferty is trying so hard with noises. He’s copying ‘Guh’ and ‘Brrrrrrrrr’. It’s the best time wasting thing in the world.

Until next time…
Love Lili

Lili’s Down Under Vintage Adventure

Tags

clothing, music, songs, style, Vintage, vivien of holloway

Every vintage collector has a story about a treasure trove that they have discovered, or the day they stumbled across something incredible. Mine happened at the Adelaide Fringe  in Australia in 2010.
I sing vintage songs from between 1920 and 1950 so it follows that my audiences are often of a slightly older demographic or vintage lovers themselves. One afternoon I was flyering for my show outside my venue and I was wearing a lovely Vivien of Holloway full circle dress with a big red petticoat. Two ladies stopped by me and commented how pretty the dress was, one said how she still had dresses from when she was young. She went on to say that she was just planning to put them in the rubbish, after all, who would want old dresses? Who indeed? Me. Me. Me. That’s who. I offered them free tickets to my show, if they would just pop the dresses into bags and drop them off to me at the Spiegeltent.

The following week, imagine my surprise when they turned up with bags and bags of gorgeous 50’s dresses. One of the ladies, Jean, had a mother who was a dress maker. So all the dresses were handmade and homemade in England before she emigrated to Australia. More excitingly, they all fitted me as if they had been made for me.

It was the sort of vintage treasure trove that I’ve only ever heard about from other people. Dresses of every hue, with layers of tulle and sequins. A white petticoat so stiff and big that it stands on its own in the middle of the floor. A divine late 40’s dress and matching jacket in apple green. A dress which, if I didn’t know better, I’d say was made by the amazing ladies at Whirling Turban. I was just amazed, again and again, as I pulled each item out of the bag. Each dress has been in a bag in a cupboard, so they were all in great condition. My only problem was how to get them home? Cue two extra suitcases and a huge excess baggage bill!
On my final weekend at the Adelaide Fringe that year, I had a lovely couple bring their 93 year old mother to the show. She was so beautiful, and reminded me so much of my favourite great aunt. She absolutely loved the show, and afterwards she came to tell me how much she enjoyed it. She said that she still had her going away gloves from her wedding in 1953, and she wondered whether I would like them? She didn’t think that her children would want them, and she’d love them to go to a good home where they would be loved. I almost cried at her generosity. Her daughter-in-law dropped them off to me and when I opened them I was stunned. Navy blue, butter soft suede, softly ruched at the wrist and made in France and in absolutely perfect condition, and they fitted me perfectly. So, so incredibly beautiful.
I’m planning to go back in 2014 with my brand new show that I’m previewing in Edinburgh this year (Lili la Scala Sings Songs She Likes and Hopes You Like too!) and I hope there is more glorious vintage just waiting for me.
What exciting vintage treasure trove stories do you have? I’d love to hear them.

Love Lili.

Ivor and I

Tags

Bobbie Andrews, Ivor Novello, musicals, Noel Coward, Novello, Red Roofs, songs, West End

My favourite (non-classical) composer has always been Ivor Novello, ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So I thought, on this snowy and freezing cold Monday, I’d share with you a little more about the sick-makingly delicious Mr Novello and I.

I sang my first Novello number, Waltz of my Heart, aged 13. It’s a divine song, utterly romantic with sweeping melodic lines and in lilting waltz time. It conjures images of 1930s string orchestras and bias-cut gown-clad beauties waltzing until dawn.

From that first early meeting, I was hooked. So who was this matinee idol who won me over at such a tender age?

Ivor Novello was born David Ivor Davies in Cardiff on the 15th January 1893. His early successes were predominantly as a songwriter, although he went on to star in film and stage productions. His first big hit was the ever popular  “Keep the Home Fires Burning” in 1914. It’s a highly emotive piece, which struck a chord (pardon the pun), with a country in the grip of a catastrophic war. It’s a song that never fails to bring a lump to my throat whenever I sing it as I imagine all those bereft families, and also those families in wars since. It was a huge success and brought him fame and fortune at the age of 21.
In 1917, Novello was introduced to the actor, Bobbie Andrews, who became his partner for the rest of his life. Scandalous for 1917, how delightfully modern though? Andrews, in turn, introduced Novello to the younger Noel Coward, who was awed by Novello’s instinctive glamour, he later wrote
“I just felt suddenly conscious of the long way I had to go before I could break into the magic atmosphere in which he moved and breathed with such nonchalance”

Bobbie Andrews in the early 20s
In the 1920s, he turned his rather talented hand to acting, first in films (he was the star of some rather early Hitchcock films) and latterly on stage. With his handsome profile and distinctive voice, he was rather successful at both. He also starred in the lavish West End productions of his own musicals, (didn’t I say he was just too talented?) The most successful being Glamorous Night in 1935 and The Dancing Years in 1939. I actually met a lady in Adelaide who went to see The Dancing Years when it first opened in London. As we say in Essex, I was ‘wel jel’ and by her account, Mr Novello was indeed divine.

As well as being successful on stage and screen, Ivor was also quite the success romantically speaking. Sometime in the early 20s, he had a short-lived affair with Siegfried Sassoon, whose biographer later wrote that Novello “was a consummate flirt who collected lovers as he gathered lilacs”.

In the late 20s, Ivor was able to buy a large property in Littlewick Green called Redroofs. It became a hotbed of bohemian entertaining, and weekend parties became quite notorious for their disregard for convention. Cecil Beaton coined the phrase “the Ivor Noel Naughty Set”!

For all his four 1930s musicals, Novello wrote the book and music, Christopher Hassall wrote the lyrics, and the orchestrations were by Charles Prentice. Glamorous Night starred Novello and Mary Ellis, with a cast including Zena Dare, Olive Gilbert and Elizabeth Welch, and ran from 2 May 1935 to 18 July 1936, at Drury Lane and then the London Coliseum. Careless Rapture ran from 11 September 1936 for 296 performances, with Novello, Dorothy Dickson and Zena Dare in the leading roles. Crest of the Wave starred Novello, Dickson and Gilbert, and ran from 1 September 1937 for 203 performances. The last of Novello’s pre-war musicals was The Dancing Years, which starred Novello, Ellis and Gilbert, opened at Drury Lane, closed on the outbreak of the Second World War, and re-opened at the Adelphi Theatre, running for a combined total of 696 performances, closing on 8 July 1944.
Novello presented only two new shows during the war. Arc de Triomphe in 1943 and Perchance to Dream in 1945. In between the two shows, Novello got himself into serious legal trouble and served four weeks in prison for misuse of petrol coupons which was a rather serious offence under rationing laws in wartime Britain. The prison term was a huge shock to Novello both mentally and physically and had serious lasting effects. Not everybody was supportive and even Coward’s sympathy was limited,
“He’s been fighting like a steer to keep going as before the war and hasn’t done a thing for the general effort”.

Novello died suddenly from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 58, a few hours after completing a performance in the run of King’s Rhapsody. He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes are buried beneath a lilac bush and marked with a plaque that reads “Ivor Novello 6th March 1951 ‘Till you are home once more’.”

His music never fails to move me, it is always a joy to sing and whenever I put together a new show, it is always liberally peppered with his songs, both popular and rare. I love to hunt out some of his lesser known songs and one of my favourites, which I found in a London archive, is called ‘Dark Music’. The most hauntingly beautiful melody,  it’s packed with unusual chromaticism and luscious chords.

I often wonder whether a whole show of his songs would be like eating a whole tin of Roses at Christmas. Heavenly but altogether too rich. It’s music that needs the piquancy of other composers to show it off to its best advantage. Put it in a show with some Coward and some Hollander and it really shines.

I adore Ivor, I love to sing his songs and share the ones that aren’t so well known with audiences around the world. I’d like to think that had we met, we would have been kindred spirits and what terrible fun we would have had and what songs we would have sung.

Only a few weeks before Novello’s death, Coward wrote of him:
“Theatre – good, bad and indifferent – is the love of his life. For him, other human endeavours are mere shadows. The reward of his work lies in the indisputable fact that whenever and wherever he appears, the vast majority of the British public flock to see him.”

Truly, a star.