You I Like

27th December

You I Like

It’s no secret that I love the theatre.

Like many, my introduction to theatre was through attending a pantomime and I have vague recollections as a child of seeing Mrs Mills, sat at her piano, dressed as the biggest fairy in the world. Does anyone else actually remember Mrs Mills?

The first musical I saw on stage was ‘Oliver’. Both my brothers were in it, part of Fagin’s gang. I was probably too fat even then to pass as a starving waif, reliant on his nimbleness just to survive.

Even though I wasn’t in the show, I knew all the songs. I can pretty much still sing the whole score. To me that’s the secret of good writing isn’t it? That the songs stick in your memory.

My head is full of great musical theatre songs that I love, written by generations of great composers, from Jerome Kern through to Jason Robert Brown.

I can carry a tune, obviously you have to have some skill to appear in a brilliant professional production of Sweeney Todd…have I ever mentioned that? Although I can sing a bit,  there is little doubt that I always feel more confident singing a song I love.

Singing the songs of Stephen Sondheim never loses its appeal. Listening to his music is a source of constant joy, there are songs I can turn to for most moods, especially when I’m feeling like a good cry.

But if I want to sing a song that leaves a smile on my face then there is little doubt that the songs of Jerry Herman are top of my list.

Seeing 'Hello Dolly’ on Broadway, starring the wonderful Bette Midler, was certainly a theatrical highlight of my lifetime. We have tickets to see the London production next year starring Imelda Staunton.

I think my first exposure to Jerry Herman would have been the film version of ‘Hello Dolly’, but I also had in my cassette tape collection a compilation of Broadway hit songs which featured Dame Angela Lansbury singing ‘If He Walked Into My Life’. That’s a great performance of a great song from ‘Mame’, a musical that wasn’t as well received as ‘Dolly' but has just had a well received revival here in the UK, and I will be trying to see it when they bring it back.

Another cassette in that collection was the OCR of La Cage Aux Folles, starring George Hearn & Gene Barry. Another musical that I grew to love and this love was certainly cemented when our local amateur operatic society staged a production, a very good production. I have seen three productions of that show in the West End & on tour and ‘The Best Of Times’ must be one of the greatest feel good MT songs of all time.

Thanks to Torville and Dean, we discovered and fell in love with ‘Mack & Mabel’. Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters are often popping up as my iPod shuffles through my song list whilst I’m driving too and from work.

We had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing the production staged by The London Musical Theatre Orchestra with David Bedella as Mack & Natasha Barnes as Mabel.  Less enjoyable was the touring production with Michael Ball, but the songs still hit the mark.

Another song that appears on shuffle is the aforementioned Dame Angela Lansbury singing ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ from ‘Dear World’.

I have never seen ‘Dear World’ and as I now sit looking through Jerry Herman’s back catalogue I realise there are musicals he wrote or contributed too, that I am yet to discover and add to my play list…but I think today is a good day to make the choice to change that.

I hadn’t planned to write about Jerry Herman today, but the announcement of his death reminded me just how much I have enjoyed his music. Really enjoyed it actually.

Thanks Jerry. You really do leave this legacy of great songs which people will be singing for as long as we have voices.




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