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There Ain't Nothin' Like a Dame From Manchester Online, by Kevin Bourke, 6 Jun 2003

Diamonds are forever. And so, it seems, is Shirley Bassey, who celebrates her fiftieth anniversary in the business of show with a "Thank You For The Years" concert tour that visits the M.E.N. Arena this weekend.

"Ludicrous", "ridiculous" and "impossible" are the descriptions the sixty-year old Dame Shirley herself applies to the concept of having been an entertainer for that long.

Push her, though, and she comes up with a one-word explanation for her longevity - "Glamour, darling!", she purrs.

Certainly, the Bassey live experience is still a unique celebration of almost everything that's absolutely fabulous yet also irredeemably, unrepentantly naff about old-fashioned showbiz.

She starts off at full-throttle and then just cranks it up.

Of course, it's slightly absurd but it's also wildly entertaining as she emotes so vigorously that every last nook-and-cranny of whatever song she happens to be singing is completely overwhelmed.

"I've always been rather dramatic," she offers, in a rare moment of understatement.

"I noticed that audiences respond to that. It makes them feel I'm telling a bit about my life. My gay fans particularly have always liked the roller-coaster of my life You know 'She's gone through all this and she's still up there.'

"Mind you, they like the frocks too!"

Tragic life

That tragic life has been told so often that it scarcely needs telling again, but, briefly: she was abandoned by her father when she was two, never to see him again; she got pregnant when she was just seventeen; her first husband, a homosexual, divorced her then killed himself; her second daughter Samantha died in mysterious circumstances; her second husband divorced her - the list seems to go on and on.

"My first manager told me I would only always be a sexy nightclub singer," recalls the Welsh diva who, as a very young girl, got one of her first breaks after facing down a typically rowdy Glaswegian audience.

"I didn't ever know I would get this far. I didn't think I would last because he said I would never appeal to the masses.

"My God, was he wrong! The fans who were my age in the early days got married and had children and brought them to the shows. Now those children are bringing their own children. I really cannot tell you why that is or what I've done.

"I was pushed into showbusiness, really, although, obviously, I allowed myself to be. I became my image," she admits.

"But this is the best of times. I'm celebrating fifty years at the top! The older I get, the better I get. I was very strong as a child, it's my nature.

"But I didn't realise how strong I was until these things happened to me. I like myself and if you like yourself, life is wonderful!"

© Manchester Online 2003

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