- Talk of the Town -

Judy Casting Her Spell
By Martin Jackson - London Express

A night watching Judy Garland in cabaret is an experience not easily forgotten.  Wearing her heartbreaks like campaign medals she puts us through an emotional mangle.  A thin wispy little sparrow dressed in a rust-colored trouser suit, she looked so fragile that if the brass section blew too loud she might have disappeared.  No matter if the lyrics slurred somewhat or the tunes were sometimes stretched, Miss Garland held her audience in a spell.  She maintained throughout an authority that only a handful of stars can command.  Once again, Judy demonstrated to a London audience that whatever the wounds and the upsets, here is a talent that refuses to hide.

No logic, no analysis, no judgment in the world can completely explain the phenomenon of Judy Garland's performance at TOTT.  She walks the rim of a volcano each second.  Miraculously she keeps her balance.  It is a triumph of the utmost improbability.  Time has ravaged her singing voice.  Within a certain range of scale, tone and volume it survives - most beautifully in a downbeat arrangement of JUST IN TIME.  Outside that range the vibrato is wild and uncontrolled, the pitch uncertain.  At times she needs to sing very artfully indeed to disguise the flaws.  But the singing is not so important as the tension and the compulsive gamble of entertainment.  She conducts a ritual whose contrasts would unhinge most performances.  Part professionalism collides with urchin gaucherie.  She is a legend and legends are revered, yet her secret is partly that she makes fun of the legend, the songs, herself, her image and even the audience.  Somehow, too, she has never grown up.  Her body is frail and girlish.  Yet when she sits in a spotlight to sing RAINBOW she is not only Dorothy but also a woman in her middle 40's whom life has pummeled.  The pathos is terrifying.

Two elements make up Judy Garland - the woman and the myth.  The myth is what we encounter first.  The magic has been turned on, something remarkable comes this way.  What comes is Judy, the woman.  She looks tiny and timelessly young... a quick flicker of pathos... a smudge of dirt on her face and she might be telling us how she would sail up the avenue.  However, there is nothing really pathetic about her.  She prowls the stage like a tigress.  She is the Maria Callas of pop music.  Her voice still holds its tremendous charge of suppressed excitement.  Miss Garland is a much better artist than she gives herself credit for.  Myth and woman are inextricably entangled.  For us on the receiving end, this is a misfortune we can hardly avoid unless we are prepared to throw romance out of our lives altogether.  Nor indeed is it so much of a misfortune.

Judy Garland in cabaret is one of those rare singers who seem to call for dramatic rather than musical criticism.  It is not that when she sings it often falls short of splendor; merely that when she sings she and not only her voice is in constant performance.  Miss Garland provides one of those intensely theatrical experiences that somehow cannot fail for all the wrong and schmaltzy reasons yet ultimately succeeds for all the right ones.  She sings her way through a repertoire of nearly a dozen songs... displaying as she performs that apparently ageless urchin face and a timeless, near boundless talent to amuse that can seldom have been so clearly in evidence.  In her chats between numbers she is considerably less assured than in her singing, but with each successive song (and one feels that her whole repertoire could be sung by her audience accurately in the right order) she climbs back to the top of her form, helped by a curious love-hate relationship with her orchestra and her mike cord, neither of which ever seems to be doing quite what she expected of them next.  For a definition of theatrical magic, one need look no further.

A legend - or it is a myth? - skipped onstage at Talk of the Town and won hysterical applause even before the curtain rose.  At 46, Judy has the rare mystique of what is called "a great star."  Certainly the authority, stage presence, command of an audience and self-confidence rocket across the footlights - sometimes.  The rest of the time, I am sorry to report, she is an apology for former greatness.  Old fans will be well rewarded.  New ones, hoping for the much-vaunted magic, will be disappointed.

Judy Garland's London cabaret debut last night at the Talk of the Town was part happening, part experience, and all nostalgia.

Predictably the nervy and restless Miss Garland, so slim and boyish at 46 she might have been Peter Pan, turned in a raw emotion-packed powerhouse performance.  Here and there the voice cracked noticably and the notes were ragged. She herself said before sitting cross-legged on the stage and singing Over the Rainbow "I may croak a bit."

She did. But its's the 12,480th time she's sung it and it still gets homage. There was standing room only before she came out, and a mood of instant hysteria among an audience determined to clap itself silly.  It applauded the overture.Gave a big hand for the curtains. A few bars of the wedding march and it would have weeped.

Soon-to-be-wed Miss Garland finally appeared in a bronze Beau Brummell trouser suit alive with sequins and gold beads.

She straightaway threw her heart to the mob - Ginger Rogers, Zsa Zsa Gabour,  Danny La Rue and Johnny Ray among them - while belting out "I Belong to London".

An hour later she left to a rave reception with the reminder "A Londoner I'll always be." It was kisses and squeals, schmaltz and worship, sugar and syrup.  "We love you Judy," cried the faithful, "And I love you," came the response.  It was that kind of night. She sang 12 of the songs that make her Judy Garland and treated it as a private party.

She pretended not to remember or care what came next and laughed at herself with lines like: "I haven't learned a new song since Covered Wagon.Not since andy Hardy met Deanna Durbin. Now what do we do?"  Plus a show stopping: "I've been through a lot. People ask 'Is she going to appear? Is she dead?  ' Well I'm here and you couldn't keep me away."

She has personality-plus, and if the voice has taken a beating she can wake up the town with songs like Just in Time, Rock-a-bye, The Trolley Song and You Made Me Love You.

Judy still has punch. She has the star quality, magnetism and confidence to bend the rules and indulge herself with an undisciplined take it or leave it act.

They took it - and shouted for more. Like it or not her standard dabbling in emotions and nerve ends, she is what the business is about.  She may no longer be the little girl crying for the rainbow...the voice may waver and the notes come harder...show business may eat it's young...but the former Frances Ethel Gumm retains most of the magic given her by The Wizard of Oz.

Yes Judy Garland is alive and well and queening it in London.

Singers with artistry have a great advantage - when their voices starts to go their artistry remains.  Hat's off to the greatest singing artist of them all - Judy Garland, who can still hit the big note to end "Rockabye" and bring the house down.

It was excitement all the way at the Talk Of The Town on Monday, what with a legal battle raging to see if it would be a one-night stand or a 5-week season for her (it's a season and a hooray for de Judge). But after the Talk orchestra, under Burt Rhodes baton had played for quite a while and no Judy appeared one wondered if she was going to.  (She even cracked later : "Something extrordinary for me...not only have I appeared, but I am singing a new song." This was all about having a whale of 
a time at night and to hell with the morning).

She did make an entrance eventually in the sparkling, bejewelled organy suit,  looking slimmer than I ever have seen her with a leprechaun haircut and green scarf round her neck.

For one hour she alternately bowed in thanks for the great reception she got, sang with concentration and dithered about between numbers asking Bert what came next and overdoing the 'relaxed' bit. But we all loved her. Her "I Belong to London" was a bit goo-ey, but we believed her, and standards like 
"Man that got away", "Trolley Song", "Chicago" and "Over the Rainbow" were all socko hits.

For a breather, she coaxed Danny La Rue on-stage and he plugged his chart-maker, "On Mother Kelley's Doorstep," with Judy joining in. The tune has stayed with me ever since, along with the memory that Judy is a great artist and we're so happy paid us all a call.

Last night Judy Garland appeared at the Talk Of the Town - and if I pay scant attention to her trembling uncontrolled vibrato, and flat, cracked notes it is because her appeal to the audience last night did not rely on singing ability. Her voice is not the world's greatest, but this hardly detracts from 
a remarkable performance. To have mentioned it at all seems rather an unkind irrelevancy.

Last night her audience (the biggest I've ever seen at the Talk of The Town) was ecstatic. She didn't need to be able to sing, and in fact, she didn't overwork on that particular score. It was enough that she could scamble through that remarkably melodic bunch of songs with which she is associated - 
The Man That Got Away, Rock-a-Bye, You Made Me Love You, etc.

And yet I must admit she is truly a riveting entertainer. Now 47 she is still Dorothy on the way to Oz: still the little girl packed with spirit and fighting her way against some enormous odds: still an explosive compound of pathos, self mockery, guts and comedy. She bawls, she totters, she does a 
mocking little tap dance, and she struts and marches - all arched back and flaying arms like some very grand principal boy in her sequined Pearly Queen trouser suit.

"They tell me I'm a legend." she quips , and it is not for us to question how or why she should have attracted such a reputation. She has, and it is only in this context that it is now useful to regard her.
During a remarkable performance of flying kisses and jokes for her stageside enthusiasts, she dragged Danny La Rue up to give us a song ("I know it's my night - but I'm tired"), used her M.D; Burt Rhodes, as a straight man for her frequent and lengthy comic asides, and generally gave an impression of complete disorientation.

To say that she played to her gallery would be to do her constant rapport with her army of devotees less than justice, and to complain that much of her bewteen songs dialogue was indistinct and confusing would be to miss the point of her appeal. It is precisely this gloriously defiant pathos which is the character of her charisma.

The climax of the ritual was , of course, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which she sang quietly sitting cross-legged on the floor under a single shaft of spotlight.

It always was a great song.....

 Ray Connolly's thoroughly on-target appreciation of Judy Garland's extraordinary talent [December 31] should be required reading for everyone who thinks they know what show business is all about.

I remember Hollywood's Roger Edens (who guided Judy through her biggest movie successess as her musical arranger) saying that really only three stars could create such magic with an audience in this centuary. In his opinion they were Al Jolson, Ethel Merman and Miss Garland.

THe opening Monday proved to so many of us that he was probably right- this girl is still something to marvel at.

To Danny La Rue must surely go full marks for his handling of an unexpected on-stage appearance - something which could have easily mis-fired and particularly under the circumstances which would have defeated many a "professional".

Instead, we saw and felt the drama of the moment which he quickly and expertly turned into a personal success. That's entertainment.