Front Row Dress Circle

It was just a week ago that we were reading about yet another performance fiasco where Amy Winehouse slurred and pitched around the stage in a drunken, confused state. After all those pictures of her in the Caribbean last year looking so relaxed and well seemed to give hope to her fans that maybe, just maybe, this wonderfully talented young woman was finally on the straight and narrow – that she had beaten her chemical demons and was ready to start living again. Did any of us though really have the feeling she had done it…? I think we wanted to believe it – but it was not to last.

Sadly Amy Winehouse is dead at the young age of 27 – found beyond help this afternoon in her home from what appears to be a drug overdose. The devastating journey of self-destruction finally completed and what a loss she is the world of popular music. What a loss it is for her parents to lose their daughter in such a tragic, though not unpredictable way. Maybe now it is time to identify and go after those cretins who corrupted this young woman at a time when she had the world at her feet – those who sold her the drugs which reduced her little body to that of a wasted skeleton and ate away at her talent turning her into almost a caricature of her former self. They are out there, somewhere, and they must be known. I hope they pay for their part in this young woman’s tragic departure from this world.

There are some things which are in the very least tiresome and the eternal battle being waged over the name ‘Bucks Fizz’ has to rank as one of them. Maybe it’s me but I have lost track over who exactly Bucks Fizz is today and who they were thirty years ago…is it really that long?

As I understand it you have ‘Bucks Fizz’, ‘The Original Bucks Fizz’, ‘Bobby G’s Bucks Fizz’…then you have people who are the ‘original’ members, people who are ‘original’ members of the second version of the ‘original’ band and new members who are mad enough to step into the shoes of the ‘original’ members and get caught up in all this hoo-haa. The thing is none of them seem to like each other. There was Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Jay Aston on he makeover show Pop Goes the Band in 2009 which was uncomfortable viewing at times as bad feeling still clearly existed between Jay and her later replacement Shelley Preston. Then you had that awful scene when Cheryl turned on past ex-bandmate David Van Day quite viciously when they faced each other on Celebrity Coach Trip recently.

With their 30th anniversary coming up they are at it again arguing over who owns the name and who doesn’t – why don’t the four authentic, original, first version members simply shake hands and reform as they were when pictured here in the photograph. I am sure they are as tired off dragging out this issue after all this time as people are of reading about their battles, their bad feelings towards each other and the bitterness that comes from over-inflated ego’s and hard-to-swallow pride. None of you are getting any younger so just get on with it eh?

The Broadway show Annie was never one of my favourite productions basically because any show featuring a lot of cutesy, squealing kids turns my blood cold – and the American brand is particularly irritating. I never liked the film version of this musical, I don’t think it transferred to film very well as many musicals rarely do.

But now I have found a version of Annie that I enjoyed remarkably well, in fact it was bloody fantastic and it was the production recently staged by the kids at Knockbreda High School in Belfast. The Year 11′s put on two extremely professional performances of the show, and under the excellent direction of Belfast Operatic Company’s Wilfie Pyper I saw a production that would not have looked out of place in the city’s Grand Opera House. All power to the talent of Wilfie – working with teens and encouraging them to give it their all on stage can sometimes be like pulling teeth but this show was the result of what had obviously been a solid working relationship between cast, crew and director.

What I found to be so enjoyable about the show was the refreshing approach to the theme, the talent of the kids and their excellent timing…not an easy thing to carry off, you either have timing or you don’t. The show moved - I have attended both amateur and professional productions where the pace has seriously lagged well before midway mark but these kids kept the pace up so that they held their audience attention. Northern Ireland – Belfast – can be proud of these kids, it needs to be, and this school has shown in it’s own way that culture and the arts is in good hands for the future.