Two American songbook concerts (BBC 4)

Last night I watched a recording of an Ethel Merman concert that she gave years ago and another on BBC 4 of  Kiri Te Kanawa, Jeremy Irons and Warren Mitchell singing songs from My Fair Lady.

I guess this original Albert Hall concert would have taken place some thirty years ago.

The problem is that, however good the recital, you inevitably compare it to the 1964 film with Rex Harrison superb as the arrogant phonetics Professor Higgins, the inimitable Wilfred Hyde White, Audrey Hepburn as Liza Doolittle and Stanley Holloway as her greedy dad.

Still, you can’t go wrong with a musical score that contains such memorable songs.

It does, however, beg the question whether such songs are sung better by a world class singer, or in the original which I believe was in recitative.

Kiri te Kanawa is now 81, but I imagine at the original concert would have been in her 50s.

Warren Mitchell played his part as Alfred Doolittle in Alf Garnett mode, though he was an accomplished Shakespearian actor. Jeremy Irons has had a fine career as leading man in films.

None can belt out a song like Ethel Merman and she ended her act of American Songbook compositions with a rousing rendition of the song for which she is best known – There’s No Business like Show Business.

It all got me through a dull bank holiday Sunday.