Bernadette Peters

Embarrassing admission. When I was doing GCSEs/A-levels (possibly both, it all blurs into one) was when I got into Sondheim, listening obsessively to get through revision. Naturally, this involved listening to hours of Bernadette Peters, and blimey was I captivated. Especially high on all those teenage kicks and pesky hormones, hearing her emotional intelligence, her confidence in using silence as well as noise, her repertoire of those piercing Sondheim lyrics, her extraordinary unique voice – it meant so much back then. Since, Sondheim’s always been a part of my life, thank goodness, and intermittently I go back on these Bernadette binges. Way back when, when I was more idealistic and idiotic, I used to check her website almost daily to check whether she’d finally announce a surely imminent UK concert – I might not have had much money, but I would have paid all my pocket money for a front row ticket the very second she was coming over.

So it was with a certain self-satisfaction that I took my seat – back row of the balcony, furthest to the right, the worst seat in the house (and still forty quid!)! How times have changed, and yet still I obviously couldn’t have missed this for all the world. It developed a little late to be a childhood dream, but seeing Bernadette Peters was something of a youthful dream, one I’ve been looking forwards to practically for months but theoretically for years.

So obviously I’m not going to say a word against it, I loved every single second of the show. There she was, apparently 67 but clearly at least twenty years younger, that wonderful head of uncontrollable hair, that grace and poise and know-how of a great cabaret singer, that world of experience and frankly legendary status behind her... But even being objective I must have seen a different show to you, because she was a.ma.zing! A canny set list, not one single song showed any cracks in her voice (67! 67 and singing (and looking!) like that!), some songs were old favourites, some were leftfield treats, and some were genuine privileges to hear live. Hearing her sing, say, There Is Nothing Like A Dame was something rather fun, Mr Snow bizarre but beautiful (it’s a song my grandparents used to sing to me, so as if I wasn’t emotional enough to begin with...), It Might As Well Be Spring was quite unexpected and heartbreaking (never heard her sing that before, love that song, such a sensitive arrangement, moved me almost to tears), Johanna – Johanna! And with Let Me Entertain You, Fever, Come Up To My House, there rather seemed to be one thing on her mind, and as one of the two straight men at this Broadway concert, for me that was no bad thing... Of course, you then had Send In The Clowns, Losing My Mind, Children Will Listen, No-One Is Alone, Being Alive, and even back in my terrible seat, her voice still has that intimacy and connectivity that meant it felt, as it does in her recordings but with more poignancy when in person, that she was singing just for me – and you could tell everyone (well, almost everyone, clearly) felt just the same, she seemed to speak directly to us all. Absolute royalty, a true class act, an amazing unique talent, those songs can’t sound better than in her voice, and everyone there seemed truly to know how lucky we are to get the chance to see her as good as ever sing just for us.

And my favourite Sondheim song (and thus one of my favourite songs) is Move On – I’d argue for all his cleverness in other songs, it’s the kind of simplistic perfection only a genius can come up with. Lord knows, in the last however many years I wish I knew how many times I’ve heard her and Mandy Patinkin sing it, it will be well in the hundreds – AND SHE SANG IT! I’m in tears now just remembering, just realising what I saw, is that sad?

We can agree or disagree on how good she was. As I was walking over the bridge a party was complaining about her not doing Unexpected Song (which, ironically, is all she could do to make it unexpected). Personally I thought it was a set list that covered as many of the ‘Bernadette Peters’ songs as we needed and a good number of unexpected songs that were truly beautiful. I think we’d all agree she was good, and then some of us are willing to be more hyperbolic. But can we all agree, what a truly special night, what a real treat, what a legend, just wow!