The Telegraph Legends Series:
Joanna Lumley, Twiggy & Lulu
Cadogan Hall, Chelsea
Thursday 20th July 2017, 19.15 (actually 19.30)
Like many we buy the Telegraph on Saturdays (when it has its huge edition), and this one caught our eyes. Three female Sixties icons together in a panel discussion, with “some songs from Lulu.”
We admire all three, and as they said during the talks, both Twiggy and Lulu shot to immediate fame, Twiggy with her first iconic photo, Lulu with ‘Shout’ her first record … which I bought within days of release. Joanna Lumley had a spell at the lower levels of modelling … modelling in store at Debenham & Freebody, and doing knitting patterns … though as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous she played the ultimate swinging London person thirty years on.
Before we get on to content, a technical note. The setting was lovely. The foyer had a gin company dispensing gin and pink tonic, with no alternative for drivers, so I only sipped one to taste and poured it in my companion’s glass. No soft drink alternative is a really poor way of doing things in 2017 even if you’re promoting gin, I thought, even in Central London in an area with appalling parking. Still, I seemed to be the only one not sipping … and we parked nearby using the Just Park App, and was about the only car there when we got back. Maybe I was the only driver. London’s different.
Technically, it was inept. After two minutes, Jo Whiley, as presenter, had to ask ‘Can you hear them?’ to resounding ‘No’s.’ I thought the dreadful muffled echoey sound was because we were in the balcony (“top price ticket” in spite of restricted view through the bars and an extreme angle). But no, the cries were all through the hall. The icons had concealed mics. I’ve seen a cast of twenty singing and dancing with concealed mics / head mics in the open air with perfect sound. I’ve spoken myself with a tiny clip-on mic in hallsbigger than this with perfect sound. They turned up a bit, but sound still echoed and we missed words here and there. After the interval they issued hand mics … still radio mics, but handheld. It was a bit better, but still poor. Don’t they soundcheck? Is it the Cadogan Hall? It’s a classical venue and these can be lively for amplification with echo and bounce, but I see they have tribute bands there as well who will be amplified. It’s only spoken voice too. No balance issues. No instruments bleeding on to other mics. It’s not rocket science.
Lighting was also poor. Lulu, on stage left was in shadow on her face. This was not helped by her wearing a hat, and if the lighting people had known that, they would have wanted footlights and there weren’t any. But a little research would show she does wear a hat and to my eye, her seat was on the edge / moving out of the main lighting area. So I was irritated at the technical side throughout, including the camera for the TV screen, because it was from an angle at extreme stage right, so often on Joanna Lumley’s profile, not full face. Not the camera man’s fault.
Politics of Panels
The joy was that all here gelled, there was a great atmosphere between them, and a warm vibe. They knew each other, though no one mentioned that Lulu had appeared in Absolutely Fabulous (in My New Best Friend, 1994), as had Twiggy in Parralox and Menopause in 2001. Twiggy and Lulu were trying to remember where they’d first met in a Beatles studio session, they thought it was Magical Mystery Tour. The stuff about shared hairdressers was good.
We wanted more on the Sixties, and found some of Jo Whiley’s questions inane (Who was the most memorable person you met? What was the first record you remember? What was your favourite record? What was your favourite slow record?) Lulu flared slightly at those we felt, having spent many years answering such questions for the likes of Disc and the various teen mags, and said so, but then gave the best answer, imitating her dad singing Surrender after the pub … like Judy Collins, she is brilliant at doing short imitations of vocal stylings. She later did it demonstrating how she might have attacked The Man Who Sold The World as a soul song, and how David Bowie got her to do it in a laconic way. She was also very funny on getting her RP grandkids to say ‘I’m Scottish’ in a Scottish accent … which she only uses for anecdotes and quotes. Over fifty years in England and America have eradicated it.
Twiggy
In fact the memorable person / icon question brought out Twiggy’s best anecdote, about meeting Fred Astaire. Joanna Lumley had a great Christopher Lee tale, while playing a bride of Dracula stretched out on an altar.
Lulu had her David Bowie story which is fascinating because she explains how she was fronting the ultimate Saturday night girl-hosted family TV show and Bowie was so cool … and she was amazed he rated her. I wish she’d expanded on the alleged great lost Bowie / Lulu album. I would add that she had the absolutely brilliant Muscle Shoals album New Routes behind her at that point, together with Melody Fair recorded with the Dixie Flyers and Memphis Horns. OK, to the tabloid world she was the girlie TV host, but David Bowie would have known those albums, which were cred enough for anyone.
Joanna Lumley
The best individual line by a mile was Joanna Lumley describing her first attempt to get a job at Debenham & Freebody, never having worked. On the first day they asked her for her cards, and she blithely replied ‘Oh, I haven’t had them printed yet.’ The confusion was between “your cards” (Employment and National Insurance official documents to be handed to an employer) and “calling cards” perhaps in a pastel hue with a deckled edge. She knows she was posher than the rest and makes fun of herself.
The characters shone … Twiggy exudes naturalness, appearing to have no “side” whatsoever. Lulu, very funny, going into great voices. Joanna, with the full time actors ability to tell a well timed, well-honed tale perfectly.
We would have liked more interaction. It tended to be move along the row and answer one at a time. I have been on many panels at the end of ELT conferences and it’s a tricky situation. You’re trying to demonstrate attentive listening while trying to compose what you’re going to say when your turn comes, then the person before you comes out with exactly the point you were about to make. Anyway, it got better whenever the interaction was icon to icon, rather than through the chair.
The audience questions were somewhat clunky … had I been the compere, I would have started with “And please dispense with thanking our guests and saying how much you admire them, and just ask the question” but then she is from Radio Two and the day is filled with such stuff on phone-ins.
Lulu and band
After the interval, and before the audience questions, we had Lulu’s short set. She was accompanied just by two guitarists and percussion (on a slap box) … from her regular band, I recall. The sound was much better, though there’s still a lot of echo in that hall. She started off with Relight My Fire, her 1993 hit with Take That. Then came the first song she wrote, I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight from the same year, and as she ruefully said, Tina Turner covered it and had a worldwide hit. It’s now taken as a duet, with Louis Riccardi on vocals and guitar.
Lulu: To Sir With Love
She rounded off with To Sir With Love … the only “Sixties” song here. That song is always a fascinating tale. We only got a short intro here, sadly because she can tell the story better at greater length. It was indeed the biggest-selling record of 1967 in the USA in the Summer of Love. (A curmudgeon can add that Englebert Humperdink had the best-selling UK single in the Summer of Love). But EMI in Britain refused to release To Sir With Love as a single, consigning it to a B-side. She pulled out the last note to raise the rafters. Fabulous.
The only bum note in the evening was the end, when Joanna Lumley started on how slim and fit they all were in tight black trousers, and the three all got self-congratulatory on their mutual defiance of time. Looking round the room, all three were unusually privileged and genetically privileged too. No need to rub it in to the rest of us.
As to the series … they need a major overhaul on the technical side. It should be really easy to be audible and clear with modern technology.
see: My “Toppermost” article on Lulu.
Lulu, 26 May 2015 review, Bournemouth Pavilion
