A few years ago, before I had a blog that nobody reads, I had a radio programme that nobody listened to. One Saturday evening, at the height of my radio career – turn of phrase only, listeners probably required to claim any actual heights - I happened to watch a TV programme called ‘I’d Do Anything’, a sort of talent show in which Andrew Lloyd Webber was looking for an unknown girl to play Nancy in a forthcoming West End production of ‘Oliver’. On this particular evening an 18 year old Irish girl called Jessie Buckley sang a song called ‘The Man That Got Away.’ 

Somehow I had never heard this song. I say ‘somehow’ because I have since discovered that it’s been recorded by a gazillion different singers including Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, and Judy Garland who set the benchmark with the original version in the 1952 film, ‘A Star is Born.’ I think you could describe ‘The Man That Got Away’ as the ultimate torch song - the story of a woman still carrying a torch for a man who walked out on her and left her in despair. In other words, the story of a woman who has lived. 

If it had been translated into French, ‘L’homme Qui Parti’ would have been ideal for Edith Piaf. In fact, I’m astonished that didn’t happen because with its insistent rhythm and the tragic lament of the lyrics, Piaf’s been-round-the-block-a-few-times sound and style would have fitted it perfectly. 

But, as I say, Jessie was only 18 when she sang it, and, with her curly hair and fresh open face, quite a young looking 18 at that. And yet, despite what should have been a total mismatch between song and singer, her performance was utterly electrifying. I have since heard lots of different versions and, in my totally uninformed opinion, none, not Ella’s, not Barbra’s, not even Judy Garland’s, has been as poignant and riveting as Jessie’s. She seemed to live the song as she sang it, completely inhabiting it, and I wasn’t the only one who was spellbound. If you look at the recording on Youtube - and I promise you won’t regret it if you do - at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmfyYlNBYQ - you will see a cutaway to Lloyd Webber barely able to contain himself. 

Jessie didn’t win the public vote to be Nancy despite the fact that Lloyd Webber and his co-producer Cameron Mackintosh were clearly totally convinced that she should have got the part.

But, lucky, lucky girl, she did get interviewed by me on my listener-free radio show. 

And after the interview I asked her if she would help out in a little charity project I was involved in, and being a thoroughly charming and well brought up girl from the west of Ireland up she couldn’t quite find the words to decline, so she did indeed get manoeuvred into helping out. And during the helping out, I also met her mother, the equally charming Marina, a singer and a harpist, who was in London for the day. (The relevance of this will eventually become apparent if galloping narcolepsy hasn’t overtaken you by then.) 

This connection gave me a sort of ridiculous semi-proprietorial interest in Jessie and her career, and a few months later I went to see her when Trevor Nunn cast her in Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’ at the Meuniere Theatre. As it happens, another person of my acquaintance, Maureen Lipman, was also in the cast, so my sense of having a link to Jessie was reinforced. And then Jessie, who had, I believe, twice been turned down by drama schools in Ireland – which only goes to show you what utter pillocks people can be - decided she needed formal theatrical training and was offered a place at RADA which she took up. 

I thought she had made a brave but wrong decision – not, of course, that she would ever have dreamed of asking me what I thought. But having seen the judges’ reaction to her on ‘I’d Do Anything’ it seemed to me that she was already on the radar of the biggest names in musical theatre and sooner or later - and probably sooner - Lloyd Webber or Mackintosh or some other big hitter would give her something pretty juicy. Her talent was blindingly obvious so why go to a drama school – even one as prestigious as RADA – and put yourself back amongst the unknowns? 

Which only goes to show you – or, if you know me, to reinforce your already unshakeable conviction – that I know absolutely sod all. Because Jessie has now emerged from drama school and, having already appeared last year opposite Jude Law in ‘Henry V’ (or ‘Harry the Vee’ as Sid James once called it), she has now been cast by Kenneth Branagh as Perdita in his new West End Production of ‘The Winters Tale’ also featuring himself and Judi Dench. As Shakespeare himself once probably didn’t say, not a bad gig to get. 

Keen students of the bard will have spotted that these are not singing roles and although Jessie has apparently occasionally emerged to do a bit of chanteusing in jazz clubs and such like, it seems the singing has taken something of back seat; rather unfortunately I would have said, since she is so unbelievably good at it. 

To bring the story right up to date: On Saturday afternoon, whilst watching Brighton – Brighton and Hove Albion - beat Charlton 3-2 (having coming back from 2-0 down) to remain top of the Championship and unbeaten since the season began - come on you Seagulls! - but I digress - I received a text from Maureen Lipman, who, despite holding me responsible for ruining her career, has remained a friend for the nearly 30 years we have known each other. She was inviting me to join some people for dinner. 

Unfortunately I was in the grip of the game at the time – Alb-i-un, Alb-i-un, Alb-i-uh-un! - and so missed the beep that would have alerted me to the text’s arrival, and, in point of fact, didn’t notice it until Sunday, when I rang up Maureen to explain my failure to reply. At which point , she revealed - somewhat sheepishly I couldn’t help thinking – that she was that very night going to see Jessie sing at ‘The Crazy Coqs’, a little club in Soho. ‘Sheepishly’ because, as she and I have discussed Jessie’s brilliance before, she knew very well that I am a major fan but she also knew that the performance was completely sold out. In other words she was telling me that she was going, but the best I could hope for was to do as Tiny Tim did in ‘A Christmas Carol’– it’s seasonal so I thought I’d throw it in – and press my nose forlornly against the cold window from the outside and accept the fact that I was excluded. 

But I am a resourceful fellow. Enter Jessie’s mother. (Are you still awake?) Hm, I thought, I still have her number, why not call Marina to see if she can call Jessie and ask her if she can get me a ticket? A little cheeky you might think, particularly since we haven’t spoken for a good few years and then only on the day of the charity thingie. And yes, I would have to concede that to call it ‘a ittle cheeky’ would not be unjust – in fact, more like a serious understatement. 

But what’s a bit of a cheek between friends? Even if we’d only met once and not for years. So I called the number I still had for Marina in Ireland, and, would you believe it, she answered and, after a little prompting, remembered me – or claimed to - and didn’t put the phone down immediately – so maybe she didn’t - and agreed to get a message to Jessie in London.

A few minutes later I received a text from her dutiful daughter telling me there would be a ticket for me on the door. 

And so last night, I went to see Jessie, now 26 I think, in what I was told was her first singing gig for a couple of years.

This is a copy of the text I sent to Marina on my way home afterwards.

‘My goodness, Marina, Jessie was absolutely stunning. Beyond good, beyond just about anything. That was THE place to be tonight. Everyone was on their feet clapping furiously and cheering at the end. She was bloody magnificent. And if this sounds like the ravings of a star struck fan that is because that is exactly what I am. Thank you so, so much for helping get in. It was an absolute privilege to be there and quite literally unforgettable.’ 

And truly it was all of that. Accompanied by a terrific trio of piano – played by her musical director, the brilliant Joe, a virtuoso in his own right - guitar and bass, Jessie Buckley gave us a show that everyone lucky enough to have been in that room will, I have not the slightest doubt,  be talking about for years to come. Singing classics from the American songbook, sometimes in a jazz mode, sometimes more straightforwardly, she quite simply pinned the audience to their seats from first to last. 

Jessie has a voice which, when sotto voce, is pure silk, and when full-on leaves you – but not her, because she never seems to run out of breath – gasping. So much in her repertoire was simply wonderful that it seems almost invidious to rank one song above another, but ‘The Trolley Song’ with which she opened and ‘The Man That Got Away’, her encore piece – of course - seem to be top of mind, or rather they would be except that now I am remembering her glorious version of ‘It’s Magic’ and the amazing ‘Summertime’ medley.

But best of all, I think, was one song which, sitting very still, she sang very quietly, accompanied only by a guitar and which, I am not embarrassed to say, had me choking back tears. It was Don McLean’s ‘Vincent’, a truly great song anyway, but sung as you’ve never heard it. As my daughter would say, OMG. OMG to the power of ten, of a hundred, of a thousand. 

Am I getting carried away like some silly schoolboy in a way totally unbefitting to a man of my too many years? Yes, of course I am, but so would you if you’d been there. 

And the thing above all that marks Jessie out as being truly special is that she has that amazing gift of seeming to completely abandon herself in the moment. I’ve written in an earlier post on this blog about my infatuation with ‘Alabama Shakes’, the band that I went to Paris to see two days before the Bataclan murders. Their singer, Brittany Howard, who is a very similar age, has the same thing, albeit in a completely different genre. Brittany seems to me to be part Aretha Franklin and part Janis Joplin. With Jessie and her style of singing, it’s more Judy Garland I suppose or Liza Minelli as she was in Cabaret, though she sounds very different from either. But both, to me, had that completely uninhibited, putting-it-all-out-there genuineness, and that’s what Jessie gives you. And on top of that, a great charm and a winning smile and a total command of the stage. It’s a heady mixture. 

To all you Tiny Tims out there I say this: should you ever hear that Jessie Buckley is going to be singing in a venue somewhere near you, it’s going to be sold out in minutes because Jessie is going to be stratospheric some day very, very soon. But do not accept that you have to stand outside, pressing your nose against the window. Break the bank, mug a tout, call Jessie’s mother – do whatever it takes, but one way or another, find a way to get a ticket and go.

And so finally to Hilary Benn, which may seem like a bit of stretch but in a way, daft as it may sound, it isn’t at all.



Because just as I was completely captivated and electrified by Jessie so I was as I stood transfixed in front of my telly watching Hilary Benn’s soon to be legendary speech in the Commons about the Syria bombings. Seeing that speech, having the sense that I was watching something quite exceptional, being entirely caught up with it, being thrilled by the power of it, the poetry of it, the rise and fall, the drama, was not so different from how I felt watching Jessie or Brittany Howard. (Oh, I know what you’re thinking – not very seemly to be that thrilled by a speech about bombing. But the truth is I was. That’s the power and the danger of great rhetoric I suppose.) 

And neither was it so different from the way I felt when Tomer Hemed, Brighton’s Israeli striker, headed the 85th minute winning goal against Charlton. There and then, in that moment, when Brittany Howard screamed, when Jessie Buckley soared, when Hilary Benn stabbed the dispatch box with his finger and spat out, ‘Con – tempt!’ – when the ball hit the back of the net and twenty five thousand people rose as one in the glorious realisation that we’d only fucking gone and won, I felt totally caught up, immersed, exhilarated, alive. 

Not quite getting it across am I? Well, you had to be there I suppose. But that’s the point. You had to be there. And I was.