Well, this is unexpected - gobsmacking, even.
You may recall that some time ago, in the Gnome Thoughts series about David Bowie's early influences, I briefly alighted on the Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks song Toll the Bell For Minnie Dyer, recorded by Kenneth Williams on the album For Pleasure Bent with an arrangement by Baz Booth.
The song can be heard on Mr Booth's own website but tonight I searched youtube to see whether a higher-fi version might have been uploaded there. The answer is no - at least, not as recorded by Kenneth Williams.
But stay, for there is an unaccompanied version by none other than ... Pam Ayres, who came to fame in the UK via an appearance on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in the mid-seventies, performing her own poems. (The above image shows her in earlier days as I didn't want to spoil the surprise.)
She is most recently known for the BBC Radio 4 series Ayres on the Air, rehearsing the indignities of age, which I presume may also occur in her recent autobiography, The Necessary Aptitude, which apparently goes up to the time of her Opportunity Knocks appearance - unlike the autobiography of another Opportunity Knocks contestant which goes right up to the book's publication (what, I can't plug my own book in my own blog?).
Ayres gives her Minnie in a live performance from her first album, Some of Me Poems and Songs, and it's pretty well handled, with due credit given beforehand to Rudge and Dicks. Note how artfully - in a kind of musical equivalent of Max Miller's standard joke-telling technique - she all but throws away the tag of each verse, rushing into the chorus, thereby forcing the audience to keep on their toes, and it works, bigtime: she is rewarded with plenty of big laughs.
True, Ms Ayres doesn't have a great vocal range, veering between singing proper (well, after a fashion) and Rex Harrison-style sprechtgesang, but it's a performance well matched to the material, and the audience reaction is testament to the fact that her skills as a reciter of her own verse have equipped her to deliver this piece effectively - and her accent is a good fit.
The whole is pretty darned impressive, in fact. Not the kind of thing you'd necessarily want to listen to time and again, because it puts beyond question that Toll the Bell For Minne Dyer is an intentionally funny song; with Williams' recording and Baz Booth's arrangement you can allow yourself to be diverted momentarily by the musical beauty which is not to be found in Ms Ayres's version. But without a chamber orchestra to hide behind, and in a situation where the number has to be instantly absorbed, with no chance of lowering the needle again (or today's equivalent) it has to be said that this is an accomplished comic performance.
And there can't be too many songs which both David Bowie and Pam Ayres have sung ... well, after a fashion. In both cases.
Related Posts:
The earlier post about Toll the Bell For Minnie Dyer can be found here.
A general guide to the Gnome Thoughts series of posts about David Bowie's influences can be found here.
Find out more about the autobiography of another Opportunity Knocks contestant here.
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