Concert in the Royal Festival Hall
From The Guardian, By Maddy Costa, Sat Jun 10 2000
When it comes to hammy performances, Shirley Bassey is in a league of
her own. She is camp in the extreme, scrunching up her face as she wrenches
every ounce of emotion from each song, flinging her arms in extravagant
gestures of pride, defiance, delight. And the audience at London's Royal
Festival Hall, clutching their programmes where the "ss" in Bassey's name
is arranged to form a heart, are with her all the way-squealing as she
flashes a pert bottom cheek during £Big Spender" (which, for a time,
Bassey couldn't sing for laughing at the reaction) and piling her piano
with flowers and gifts. It's tacky, but there's no point resisting. Bassey
is too good.
After four decades honing her performance, she knows how to keep an
audience rapt. That powerhouse voice literally stuns; at the start of the
show she sounds surprisingly quiet, but that's just the soundman trying
to ease us in gently. Before long you're convinced that one more bleater
and your forehead will be bouncing off the ceiling. Two hours and 20-odd
songs later, you're exhausted.
More mesmerising still are the passionate expressions. Bassey is so immersed
in her songs that during some songs, especially "Remember" and "Born to
Lose" she looks as though she is making every effort to keep tears from
flooding out. What's fascinating is how genuine that feeling appears to
be. Closing with "This is My Life" she sings "this is me" whilst grabbing
armfuls of her feathered gold cape (so voluminous she could take off if
she flapped her arms) and brandishing them at the audience. It might be
hilarious, if she looked any less serious and sincere. Elsewhere, the incongruity
between Bassey's lyrics and her appearance is blissful; she sings about
restoring to chips for dinner and declares "I have nothing, I have no home",
while shimmering in a gold dress with diamonds at her cleavage, tassels
down her back and a train unfurling behind her. She may be hammy, but
there is still something very real and unfeigned about her, qualities that
the average camp superstar so often lacks.