Reviewing the Situation - from Lionel Bart's 'Oliver!'
This is a private recording, made rather hurriedly over Christmas 2017 and uploaded onto YouTube, of a song I've always wanted to perform on stage and - hopefully - still may do one day. In Lionel Bart's musical 'Oliver!', Fagin contemplates the options that life presents him with as he gets older: a fabulous song, full of Jewish wit and sentimentality. I'll keep looking out for any amateur dramatic company that's planning to stage 'Oliver!' in the future and is without their Fagin!
After three years of chemotherapy and months away from the live karaoke circuit, the voice isn't as mellow as it used to be. Nevertheless, I recorded a couple of tracks at home on 19 April 2018, because they mean a lot of me.
The first is the big band/swing version of 'I Am What I Am', written by Jerry Herman and featured in the musical La Cage Aux Folles. This became my signature tune at karaoke nights at Halfway To Heaven, because few people had heard this version before and really engaged with the arrangement.
'Our Love Is Here To Stay' was sung by my dear and sadly missed partner Blair Wilson at a party for the 'Carmen Jones' company at the Old Vic. He dedicated it to me ("his man") at the time and this is my (inferior) karaoke version in the style of Frank Sinatra.