Petula Clark’s UK tour starts Saturday. Details are here (look for “click here”). Dave Moncur, DogRat reader and resident of Scotland, will be seeing Pet live, and maybe he’ll share some details with us after the show.
According to the Petula Clark blog, Pet was scheduled to make a BBC Radio 2 appearance on Steve Wright’s show today (Friday), but that didn’t happen. Wright says in this audio clip that “starlet” (that’s cute) Pet will be “on soon.”
[audio:/2008/MAY/BBC2.mp3]You’d think a savvy Brit like Wright would know Ms. Paltrow’s name is pronouced “GWYNeth,” and not “GWENyth.” The Petula blog also recently featured this new interview in The Telegraph, with her talking about vacations and travel. Pet certainly does a lot of traveling. I saw her in Connecticut just a few weeks ago!
I’ve already been castigated once here on this blog for giving the impression that England isn’t sufficiently appreciative of Pet, so I won’t add to what you’ve said here in that regard, Stu.
I agree with your comment about what Pet’s friend Anthony Newley said, but I think the French also had it right. From the outset they called her “Sexy Pet,” and I think that aspect of her appeal needs to be brought more out into the open.
The British seem to have an aversion to recognising Pets career at the stellar level it should be, an example is the lack of royal honours ie the “Damehood”, missing out on the inaugural “walk of fame” , lack of press support for th damehood petition and the horrific description “60’s Dowentown Singer ” amongst many- perhaps its the French connection that has ired them who knows. Anthony Newley had it spot on when he observed that he wished Petula had concentrated on an American career rather than British, as in America she is treated as a true star. Here in Australia she is revered as the ultimate icon of British pop, If Cliff Richard is King ,Petula is Queen (now theres a Duets album that should be considered) . Her last two tours here were total sellouts with audiences ranging from 3000 to 7000 dependent on the stadium size and she did the BIG talk shows on TV. In Britain she hasnt been on (the now defunct) Parkinson since 1981 and in the USA what a treat it would be to see her on Oprah or Ellen DeGeneras.
Nooooooo. I’m not walking back Doug. Have you never heard about how slow our inter-city trains are between London and Edinburgh? Actually I’m sticking around to catch up with friends.
Steve Wright is a well known and, I think, pretty well respected dj here in the UK. I really am surprised that he would describe Pet as a 60s pop “starlet”… it’s the “let” bit I have issues with. I mean she was hardly a “here today and gone tomorrow” artiste!
To describe her as a 60s pop star is accurate enough as long as you make it clear that she was many other things besides that, but a “starlet” does give the impression of someone who never really quite made it, or if they did, they made it only briefly.
In the UK, of all places, Petula is kinda built in with the bricks of showbiz, having been a star for over 65 years.
Weird.
A couple of weeks? Are you taking a walking tour all the way back, Dave? 😉
This is the first I’ve heard Steve Wright, and I too thought his description of Pet was a mite flip, but from my occasional online listening to BBC Radio 2, that seems to be their universal tone.
Thanks for the tip-off about Pet’s appearance on Paul O’Grady, but whoever posted it got the shape of the picture wrong, so I’ll fix that when I re-post it.
You got it Doug. I’ll let you know how it all goes when I get back to Scotland in a couple of weeks.
Petula has been on a couple of tv programmes here promoting the tour. Her appearance on The Paul O’Grady Show is now on Youtube. I wonder why she wasn’t on the Steve Wright show, and, like you I wonder where on earth he got the idea that she was a 60s pop starlet. I hope Petula didn’t hear that. It was kinda insulting.