DIARY
BARRY HUMPHRIES 0 ff to a tango lesson in Brixton, in a re-cycled building. It's commonplace now to live, work, eat, dance, witness a play though rarely to worship — in a 'space' formerly dedicated to some other purpose. The first example of re-cycling in my experience was a Melbourne television studio which had once been a spaghetti cannery. A quarter of a century after its re-consecration the brickwork still exuded, when humidity ran high, the aroma of Australia's preferred sandwich filling. My dancing partner is Rudolph Nureyev. He arrives with a knitted bonnet, jade green track suit, French osteopath and black patent leather, elastic-sided, high-heeled pumps. A carrier bag contains his towel and thermos. We work on Our routine — a tribute to Fred and Ginger — until the perspiration stains show darkly through his clothes in unexpected places. Dancing is hard work and conversation does not come easily. 'I know all about you and your tango teas' — an inane line from Valenti- no's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was about all that sprang to mind.
Ihave to sing a duet with Sir John Mills who was a song and dance man in the Thirties. I remember something from that era he recorded with Frances Day on an old 78. We manage to disinter the sheet music and Sir John is quite touched to hear the song again: for the first time in 50 years. It's called 'Little White Room' and concerns a coy young couple who long to be accommodated in such a chamber, 'a window by the sea' being their only stipula- tion. The ditty sounds a bit like a number dropped from Salad Days; but for all its archness it has the charm and potency of cheap music.
The song turns out to have been written — words and music — by Beverley Nichols for a 1937 revue. Nichols must have been dead for nearly four years now, and if he is remembered at all, he is associated with cats and cottage gardens about which he wrote voluminously. In his youth, howev- er, he was acclaimed as a prodigy; he wrote his autobiography at the age of 25 and long witty profiles of his artistic contempor- aries, rather as Martin Amis does today. Although it seems unlikely that Martin Amis will end up writing books on flower arrangement, Nichols, in his heyday, was a bit like him; a cross between Amis and Russell Harty. He used to send a lot of poetry to John Betjeman in the hope that the Laureate might intercede for its publication. I gathered it wasn't up to much. He also wrote to me towards the end of his life expressing bitter regret that he had not concentrated on serious music but had `frittered away his talent' on popular litera- ture. Nichols was a Period Piece, but an honest and entertaining author worth another look.
In the thirties his play about Melba, Evensong caused a furore. He had worked for a while as my great compatriot's private secretary and she said to him once: 'Do not forget Nichols, I put Australia on the map.' On another occasion she addressed her chauffeur as he drove her to the opera: 'Do not forget that you have a very precious burden in this car.' Dame Nellie Melba sounded a note which has been taken up by at least one other Australian Dame of recent times.
There were always outrageous stories, no doubt encouraged by Nichols, about Melba's intimate and unorthodox sore throat specific. I was reminded of this when my wife Diane attended a recent exhibition of modern jewelry in Bond Street. A talented, if morbid young silvers- mith — who is also a taxidermist — had fashioned a remarkable collection of neck- laces, part animal, part mineral. There was a 'choker' made of lacquered turkey's claws, from which depended ruby droplets. Another striking piece was decorated by serried rows of glass ampules mounted in silver. The vials contained a greyish fluid, resembling liquid moonstones. It seemed that the contents of each of these vitreous appendages represented not only great skill on the part of the artist, but also a small measure of physical excitement. What would it be like, I conjectured, to be seated at a dinner party next to a lady wearing such an evocative, indeed seminal, ornament. On second thoughts this neck- lace could be the ideal gift for an opera singer friend with the friendly injunction: in case of laryingitis, break glass.
Last night George C. Scott wobbled his wattles in a silly impersonation of Mussoli- ni, part of an American mini-series. It was hard to believe that this gravel-voiced Duce could ever have been the sensitive author of The Poetry of Friedrich Klop- stock and The Women in Schiller's William Tell, let alone that Dumas-esque melodra- ma The Cardinal's Mistress. Musso's early literary career never gets much attention although The Cardinal's Mistress was made into a successful silent movie. This mini- series would also make more satisfactory silent entertainment. It swarms with spark- lingly maintained vintage cars and the music, of which there is, as usual, too much, is an offensive parody of Respighi.
0 nce again we went to see Serious Money, Caryl Churchill's pink panto now at the Wyndhams theatre. What an original entertainment this is, with brilliant and exuberant performances by Allan Cordun- er and Daniel Webb and their satellites. This chilling liturgy was lapped up by the packed house of City types who came out smiling as if they all had a piece of the action.
While choppers full of coppers were circling Christie Country the other day and Portobello revellers were being mugged, stabbed and robbed, I was lying, like a Shropshire lad, on Parliament Hill watch- ing parents without partners manipulate their kites. I then checked a suitable green slope for broken glass before going for a nice long roll with the kiddies. It was nice to recall that Dr Johnson, having first thrown his loose change and car keys at Boswell, used to do the same thing in much the same spot.
Desperately searching for a firm of house cleaners in the Yellow Pages, I discovered that most of them are based in south London. What does this mean? Is south London dirtier than the real Lon- don? Or does the grime just sink to the bottom of the map? It certainly proved impossible to coax any of these scouring enterprises Hampstead way and I noticed many of them now employ automatic answering devices, a godsend to British tradesmen who, in order to avoid the undignified prostitution of their services, no longer need to be ill, on holiday or at luncheon.
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