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From: 	Stuart & Vicki Wilkinson[SMTP:v_wilkin@cleo.murdoch.edu.au]

Sent: 	Monday, March 09, 1998 4:25 AM
To: 	petula@listserv.azstarnet.com
Subject: 	Newspaper Concert Review


PET - THE QUEEN MUM OF POP

Concert
Petula Clark
Burswood Showroom
Review: Ron Banks 'The West Australian' Newspaper Monday March 9 1998.

Over the past decade the Burswood Showroom has allowed a long list of
veteran artists to prove that advancing age does not necessarily mean that
talent has died and retirement beckons.
In a sense there is no such thing as retirement for the genuine artist whose
chosen means of expression is the very breath of life itself. Try telling
the 88 year old Victor Borge the most senior artist to appear at the
Burswood in recent years, that his use by date is up or that marvellous
hoofer Shirley Maclaine.
This brings me to Petula Clark who has been around so long that she is not
so much an entertainer as an institution rather like the Queen Mum. Her
career dates back to the 1940's, where she was a child star whose
popularity, so I am told led to a newspaper comic strip called Our Pet.
That's quite some reputation from an early age and she?s been living up to
it ever since.
Her Burswood concert revealed that the vocal cords are still in fine fettle,
she moves with economical grace and her acting skills invest her show with a
good deal more character insights than we usually get with singers.
Petula Clark has always been in love with the theatre and it shows. Whether
dropping in a monologue about the magic of theatre or chatting to the
audience about meeting Fred Astaire or any other showbiz personality, Clark
brings a sense of easy charm and freshness to her act.
That's the beauty of the skilled actress, of course, making the repetition
of your craft seem spontaneously created just for that audience.
No wonder Andrew Lloyd-Webber wanted her for the role of Norma Desmond in
Sunset Boulevard. Her interpretation of Just One Look, the shows standout
number, gave full measure of the anguish behind the fading movie star?s
dream of a comeback to the bright lights of the studio.
Clark's performance took the audience on a journey back through her stage
shows films and hit songs. She has the advantage over many veteran singers
that in recent years she has managed to reinvent herself as a stage
performer with long runs in Sunset ant Willy Russell's Blood Brothers. This
has given her newer material to work with providing a neat counterweight to
the old hits like Downtown, I Know A Place and Don't Sleep In The Subway.
She also borrows freely from musicals she hasn't been in - Cats and Les Mis
in particular. Her version of Memory from Cats cleansed the song of its
cloying saccharine-like sentimentality, investing it with a tougher more
astringent tone.
Clark admitted she had originally recorded a longer version that had not
pleased her. The new version showed a singer still prepared to work at her
craft to get it right.
Clark is touring Australia with her Musical Director and a keyboard player,
relying on back-up musicians in each city to form her orchestra.
The Perth players deserve mention for their ability to slip in behind the MD
and follow the charts with impeccable musicianship. They sound as if they
have been backing Clark all their lives instead of this one off occasion.
And just when she was sounding so relaxed with her band, Clark decided to
demonstrate another side to her versatility, - singing solo at the piano.
In her early days in France (which was seen as desertion by the British, but
that's another story) Clark, even met Edith Piaf who was in her declining
years. She was able to witness Piaf's remarkable way with a love song and
chose to interpret the very famous and tender La Vie en Rose. But Clark is
clever enough not to copy slavishly; she gives us her version in whatever
she does.
There was plenty of material for nostalgia buffs in her concert, but there
was never a sense of a veteran pumping out routine arrangements just to keep
the punters happy as they relived the songs of their youth.
This is a lady still at the top of her profession; a singer who puts demands
on herself and delivers. A mature performer, certainly, but by no means a
spent force.
Vive Pet.