'O singer, if thou canst not dream, Leave this song unsung'
To celebrate three years since I quit smoking, last night I treated Dr B. and myself to top-price second row tickets for Glorious! (half price from lastminute.com).
Starring Maureen Lipman, it is a very light comedy on Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944), an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of singing ability and whose career culminated by filling the Carniege Hall with screaming fans.
It is not known whether Jenkins, a wealthy heiress who could afford the extravagance to book venues and recording studios, was truly convinced of her artistic gifts or if she was playing a perverse and expensive trick on her audience. Glorious! does not say, and rightly prefers to let the viewers decide.
Lipman does a brilliant job at capturing this ambiguity, albeit slipping into a heavy-handed vaudeville caricature during the side-splitting hilarious musical numbers. It is obvious she is an accomplished singer, for she feels she has to overdo the badly hit notes, compared do Foster's original recordings.
'People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing.'
Florence Foster Jenkins
Currently runs at the Duchess Theatre, Covent Garden, until 29 April 2006.
Thursday 9 March 2006 at 11:08 pm
Brilliant, isn't it? I saw it at Birmingham Rep last year. Maureen Lipman is an acting genius.