An Evening With Cher

I was genuinely confused as to which theatre because we literally never, ever talk about the Lyceum because of that Disney thing clogging it up.

But yeah, Cher in convo. Follow that, bitches! 

#clog. 

It’s being promoted by Fane who put on numerous of these book launches: I’ve been to the Tom Hanks, Brian Cox (the actor, not the astronomer) and Tarantino nights they’ve put on and enjoyed all of them: you usually get a copy of the book included in the price as well (the Brian Cox ones were signed)

I’m presuming you will be told to bring photo id that matches the name on the ticket but it’s rare that those kind of things are checked properly.

They are using dynamic pricing, the ticket I just bought (for a friend!) has gone up from £140 to £190 and the top tickets which were £190 are now £250!

I did book one of the "bargain" £46.54 seats at the back of the Grand Circle (not quite the back row, but close). It was the last cheap seat showing yesterday. Most seats were already £250 by then. I see this is sold out now, so I shudder to think what prices the final tickets went for.

I'm not going in with too high expectations, but for £46 including the book, I think it's worth it.

I clocked the running time as 19:50-21:15, within five seconds of both timings in fact.

This was disappointingly short. For the price of tickets, even factoring in the inclusive hardback memoir -- part one only, note -- nominally valued at £25 that will surely be on Amazon for half that after Xmas, I expected an hour, an interval, and then a further hour. I would have liked the conversation to have been better constructed with appropriate photos and breaks for video and audio clips by way of illustration. Instead, we were afforded a three-minute video montage to a Believe soundtrack (iirc) on a smallish screen, followed by 82 minutes of barely structured chat.

Fry seemed to be winging it and was sometimes not paying attention to Cher, who, by contrast, was affable and charming and keen to talk. Whenever she hinted at an interesting anecdote, Fry was skipping forward to the next bullet point in his head, and a couple of times Cher had to upbraid him and pull him back to what she wanted to say. Many obvious questions that were certainly in my head that would have delved deeper as Cher regaled her thoughts somehow escaped the host. Fry seemed more interested in applying Cher's observations on life to himself, that is when he wasn't showing off. (We really did not need to hear how he thought the Dutch audience member's surname ought to be correctly pronounced.) When Fry said that there were people present that were not only much younger than Cher but also younger than him, this was an ill-judged joke that came acoss merely as rude.

This was all rather odd as I am a Stephen Fry fan, at least on telly where I love his erudition and amusing wit, but what there was of that here was rarely funny, was misplaced and frequently jarred. We were here for Cher not him. His excessive sycophancy did not play well either, and my sense was that Cher was being polite in indulging it. This was screaming out for a more down-to-earth interviewer to tease out Cher's human side behind the personality. Can you imagine what a Paul O'Grady would have unearthed were he still with us? We had tantalising glimpses only. I thought the contrast between Cher's assessment of Ike Turner versus Sonny Bono was stark and revealed much about her straightforward common sense.

The twenty-minute delay to proceedings was apparently due to five of Cher's friends being trapped in a lift and she ultimately went on with that unresolved it seems. I noticed a row of five empty seats on the third row of the centre stalls that were never filled, so perhaps that was where they were meant to be.

No questions from the audience were allowed, apart from three that had been supplied to Fry beforehand (and had to be retrieved from his dressing room where he had mistakenly left them while being distracted by the lift incident). All three questions chosen were fluff and uninteresting, and one had already been asked by Fry in any case.

The evening struck me as a case of Cher's management shamelessly cashing in and playing everything incredibly safe and controlled, whereas a frank and open dialogue would have worked wonders for the star's image and popularity. If there is any point at all in these kind of events, it is to offer a peek behind the candelabra and to see the real personality unleashed with tongues less constrained by the lawyers who police what can be said in broadcast forums. (There were cameras recording this interview, but that still allows for subsequent editing of anything said that should not have wider publication.)

I warmed to Cher much, despite learning that she's far more Sandra Dee -- no drink, no drugs -- than her outfits over the years would have hinted at.

Three stars.

Stephen Fry seems an odd choice for Cher. Graham Norton didn't fare much better when she was monosyllabic, didn't find his questions interesting and was so over promoting the damned book wanting to do something creative. Her triumph was bringing up his sh*t gameshow Carnal Knowledge, which he hoped everyone had long forgotten. Knockout blow to Cher!