Lorna Luft
Songs My Mother Taught Me

The Stables Milton Keynes - 3rd February 2008
Dernagate Theatre Northampton - 6th February 2008
 

Glamour from the Golden Age of Garland

There’s something missing in modern celebrity, something that becomes immediately apparent when Lorna Luft steps out onto the stage.  Wearing a stunning silver dress on Sunday and a fabulous floor-length pink dress on Wednesday and always immaculately presented, she glitters in a way that today’s stars don’t, and in a way that her mother most certainly did. Let’s take a trip back to a time when stars really were stars and legend was a category reserved only for the very best: Sinatra, Astaire, Martin, Garland – the list contains only a few more.

Assembling around her an excellent band under the direction of Colin Freeman, Lorna takes a journey through her mother’s song book – songs she sang in films, on stage and on television – songs that have become as timeless as Garland herself and interspersed with some wonderful stories, are presented in this show as a real celebration of the wonderful body of work she has left behind for us to enjoy.

Who better to tell us about the real Judy Garland than the little girl who mischievously switched shoes left out for cleaning in the Savoy Hotel with her Mum, before asking her Mother if they would get into trouble.  To which Mum replies ‘I hardly believe they will think Judy Garland did this.’   Lorna immediately puts right the misnomer that her mother was a tragic figure.  Yes she had her share of tragedy in her life, but she most certainly was not tragic, she was a woman who possessed a fabulous sense of humour and the ability to laugh at herself.  Garland also had real grit and determination; when struck down with hepatitis and faced with Doctors telling her she would never perform again, she disregarded them, got up and packed out Carnegie Hall.

All the songs in the show, from the openers Minstrel Girl and I Feel a Song Comin’ On through to the amazing Born in a Trunk Medley of close to 30 of Garland’s most remembered songs from her films and shows are performed consummately by Lorna, who doesn’t hold back in any aspect of her performance, a true reminder of the way her mother performed them.  Highlights for me have to be ‘The Man that Got Away’, which I have literally played to death from the Songs My Mother Taught Me album (First Night Records).

Another, perhaps more personal memory to Lorna herself comes in the form of her recounting her admiration for Sammy Davis Jnr, and watching from the wings every night as he performed The Birth of the Blues whilst in Vegas.  When Davis died he left Lorna the arrangement of the song in his will.  She performs it in this show and I hope very much that The Birth of the Blues finds its way onto a CD release soon as she owned the song completely.  For me it was the musical highlight of the evening.

This show is as much about Lorna coming to terms with and being able to celebrate her mother’s legacy as it is about Judy herself.  Legacies are unwieldy things and there is ample evidence out there of children who have failed to cope under the glare of the shadow.  Lorna is not one of them, although for a while in the 1970’s it did look like she would succumb to the wild party lifestyle.  Thankfully she wised up, grew up, ditched the drink and the drugs and allowed herself to just be herself - the lovely, grounded and devastatingly witty person she is today.  Away from the stage she is very unassuming, very clued up on the world around her, passionate about history and devoted to her husband and her children.   

But the fact remains Lorna is the daughter of one of the most loved female entertainers of all time and we should not lightly forget the contribution Judy Garland made to music, television, radio and film.  Thankfully with Lorna’s help we have the opportunity to remember and celebrate Judy Garland with this very glamorous and at the same time intimate show.  The show closes with Lorna’s assertion that despite everything that Judy went through she loved her children and they knew it.

At the start of the evening the opening number is footage of Judy singing to Lorna a specially written song for her containing the lines ‘Lorna, I can’t believe what I see…’  A proud mother of her young daughter then, and were she still here, a proud mother of her immensely talented daughter now.

Rachel Lewis 08 / 02 / 08