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Review by Paul Nelson
HANDS
up all those who remember Rose-Marie. She was a blonde, American comedienne,
with all the schtick of vaudeville, including excellent comedy timing, vocal
talent and a personality that tends to go with the type. No stranger to Broadway,
she latterly fetched up as sidekick to the star in The Dick van Dyke Show
on television.
One of her great attributes was a cabaret performance during which she sang
parodies of songs in which she lampooned herself and her lack of sexual conquests
with various men. She was extremely funny and, it tends to go with the territory,
the humour was Jewish.
Examples are Together Wherever We Go: " 'Wherever we are we're together
… ' Herman Glimsher, me and his mother." and " 'Oh, Danny Boy,
the pipes the pipes are calling', The Pipes were friends of my mother's, Sam
and Irene Pipe ... " The humour was fast, clean and had the audience
in stitches. I thought her act unique and treasure a recording of an entire
evening of her parodies presented to a wildly enthusiastic audience.
This very much longed-for vein has been mined again in the persona of another
American, Shelly Goldstein, who recently appeared in Larry's Room
at Pizza on the Park. This time, a brunette, a weight-whiner, though there
seems to be little reason for this, and definitely funny and Jewish.
She begins her act by announcing that, in a similar vein to Rose-Marie, her
songs will be self-critical of her choice of, and chances with, men.
Her first parody was Sixteen Going on Seventeen, by Rodgers and Hammerstein
(I call them Dick and Oscar, the two things everyone in Hollywood wants).
The song runs through the various ages of woman, in each decade or more, failing
to score.
Then, after a bright parody of How Lovely to be a Woman from Bye
Bye Birdie, here called How Lovely when News was Stupid, she abandons
the format, preferring to give heavily accented show business and political
references. The act remains very amusing, but I was sad at the departure from
sexual failure, whether on her part or that of her partner. Almost surreally,
in real life she is happy and fulfilled with a man she met on the Tube at
Clapham.
The evening takes a further twist with the introduction of Ray Jessel, an
ex-pat Taffy who is currently writing musicals for the theatre. After singing
one of his ballads, Please Don't Let it be Love and joining him in
a very funny duet, Something on the Side, both from his projected musical
Moll Flanders, she briefly left the stage to him. True to the format,
he parodied a typical Shirley Temple song, not of hope but the reverse; Life
Sucks and then You Die.
The second set follows the pattern of the first and the evening is one I am
glad I didn't miss. Shelly Goldstein is no wuss, she can belt with the best
of them and has an endearing personality with a raspy, forked tongue when
she needs it. It passed through my mind that she should have been playing
the awful Cora in Anyone Can Whistle
at The Bridewell. It would have been mutually beneficial.
She was more than capably complemented by Nigel Lilley on piano, making sure
the evening went with a swing. One criticism, which applies to every act seen
at the venue, either the curtains at Pizza on the Park are burned, or that
little black dress goes. Light, frothy evenings do not need a setting reminiscent
of Dis.
Alas, Miss Goldstein will have moved on by the time you read this, her engagement
was for two nights only, but I am sure the audience at Pizza on the Park,
'hearing words they never heard before' or at least that they have not been
used to hearing in that venue, will eagerly await her return.
Songs For Lovers and Those They've Dumped, written, compiled and performed
by Shelly Goldstein with Ray Jessel. Musical Director Nigel Lilley. Presented
in Larry's Room at Pizza on the Park, 11 Knightsbridge, London SW1. Tickets
020 7235 5273.
RELATED STORIES: Click here
for Paul Nelson's preview of the evening...
