Review - Liliane Montevecchi, Pizza on the Park

The Silver-Fox always goes a little misty-eyed, not to say wet of nose, at the sound of an accordian or the roll of a Gallic rrrrrr, so on Saturday night we nipped onto the number 9 bus and leaped off at the Pizza on the Park, to see the legendary (and very French) Broadway survivor Liliane Montevecchi.

At 76 Ms Montevecchi has a trunkful of theatrical anecdotes to share and she manages to remember most of them. From the Folie Bergere to Elvis Presley to Follies, to her Tony award winning performance in Nine.

We were particularly interested to hear that her best friend is that well known cosmetic surgery experimenter and mother... Jackie Stallone.

The ex-BB contestant is a practitioner of "rumpology" which is divination using the buttocks of a person rather than their palms, something that would be wasted on the divine Mme M as she seems to have no bottom at all but merely bends in the middle where her fabulous legs meet her hand-span waist. ( Note, all OAPs should try the velour cat-suit /Juliette Greco eye-liner look ...it's a killer).

The songs are wonderful; Sondheim, Aznavour, Jerry Herman and Piaf all delivered with total fabulousness and mostly in yer actual French. My S-F was in Brel heaven.

The evening was produced by a walking perma-tan called Jeff Harnar who bounded, comme un grand fromage, onto the stage at one point to join our star in a Cole Porter medley. I think Jeff likes Liliane, he nearly licked her cat-suit off with adoration. Mr Harnar is producing and starring in "The 1959 Songbook" which runs for the next couple of months at Pizza on the Park and to which I had thought of taking the S-F, but I'm afraid that too much exposure to Mr Harnar might induce type 2 diabetes.

The audience for this amazing women was saddeningly small, but she never gave the slightest hint that she wasn't seeing the auditorium at Carnegie Hall when she looked out at us. It was a privilige to eat pizza in front of her.

(Has anyone seen Liliane Montevecchi in the same room as Carry On favourite and Morecambe and Wise alumni Anita Harris, ever?)