West End girl
From the suburbs of Barnet to the First Lady of Musicals, Elaine Paige is celebrating 60 years of song
BBC/Ray Burmiston
- Richard Barber
Elaine Paige: 60 Years in Showbusiness is on Sunday at 8pm on Radio 2. Add it to your collection now
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When, in 2004, Elaine Paige was first offered the opportunity to host her own Radio 2 show celebrating musical theatre, she turned to her manager and asked: “Who shall I be?” The answer, of course, was herself.
Up until that point, she had willingly immersed herself in any part she was playing. “I lacked self-confidence, which may sound strange for someone who’d been in the public eye for so long. But it was always as someone else. It’s via radio that I discovered who I really was. Until then, without a character, I’d always felt a bit lost.” The First Lady of West End Musicals (a moniker first coined by Tim Rice) had found her true voice.
Broadcaster Angela Rippon is a great friend. “She had a radio show when I started mine. I told her I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do. She told me not to worry: ‘Just think of it’, she said, ‘as if you were sitting across the kitchen table having a chat with a friend over a cup of tea’. That’s what I still try to do.”
There was advice, too, from Steve Wright – “God rest his soul” – who had a studio one down from where Paige broadcast. “We’d meet at the coffee machine and he’d say to me: ‘We don’t need to hear you at the back of the stalls, love!’ That may sound harsh but he was right. What he was saying was that I could make it more conversational. In the theatre, and particularly musical theatre, everything’s larger than life – big, broad strokes. Radio, on the other hand, is a much more intimate medium.”
It’s via radio that I discovered who I really was
Elaine Paige
After 21 years on air, there’s no doubting her hard-won confidence and its effect on the devoted audience of her popular show. Paige’s success lies in her warmth, her anecdotes, that distinctive laugh – somewhere between a giggle and a gurgle – endearing her to her listeners.
But it also has something to do with the show’s content. Why does she think musicals are enjoying such a golden hour? “Escapism. Look at the world we’re living in. I think people want to be transported into another time and place.”
She has been transported herself, since the show has given her the chance to interview some of her idols. “Who would have thought I’d get to meet Burt Bacharach and Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and Elton and Sting? Incredible.”
It was her manager who pointed out last year that the two of them had been together for 30 years and that Paige’s career had lasted twice as long. “I was 16 in September 1964 when I was cast in the chorus for the tour of the musical Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd. So, we came up with the idea of a celebration of six decades in the business that will run from September 2024 to September 2025.”
But it was Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, who came up with the idea of a concert at the London Palladium in Paige’s honour. So it was, that on 25 April, she found herself sitting in the theatre’s royal box while a succession of West End stars sang numbers from her hit musicals. The concert, hosted by Zoe Ball, is broadcast on Radio 2 this Sunday.
Among others, Samantha Barks, Clive Rowe, Charlie Stemp and Julian Ovenden sang a selection of songs from – deep breath – Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Billy, Evita, Cats, Chess, Anything Goes, Piaf, Sunset Boulevard, The King and I, Sweeney Todd and Follies.
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“Who could have imagined that I’d have had this life?” she says. “I still stop and pinch myself.” She shakes her head in wonder. “Not bad for a suburban girl from Barnet.” Not bad indeed.
Authors
Richard Barber
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