Singer possessed true spirit of chanson in mesmerising performance

ALAN CLAYSON is a singer and author with a long and distinguished career in the music business.

There was a bohemian atmosphere at the Rising Sun Arts Centre as the audience gathered to enjoy an opportunity to delve into the fascinating genre of the chanson, with songs performed in both English and French.

Clayson, who has written a biography of legendary chanteur Jacques Brel, delivered a short introduction to the chanson, a quintessentially French style, but adapted by many other singers to suit a more English sensibility. Then Andy Lavery and Rob Boughton, long-term associates of Alan Clayson, each delivered a short set.

In the second half of the show, Clayson, accompanied by keyboard player Lavery, stepped up to the microphone with his dramatic renditions of a well-chosen programme of songs, some very dark in tone, others more lyrical. A song like Jacques Brel’s Next covers hard-hitting themes of depravity, disease and death and required Clayson to act as well as sing.

Clayson’s own compositions are heavily influenced by the chanson genre. If I’ve Lost You and many others captivated the audience.

Clayson fully exploited his performance skills in his impassioned delivery of Scott Walker’s Girls From the Streets, but then made us laugh with Stanley Holloway’s Sweeney Todd the Barber, with its music hall feel.

We returned to the sombre again with Brel’s My Death, followed by perhaps my favourite song from the programme, Clayson’s gentle Long-Awaited One, anticipating the birth of a child.

The programme continued with numbers from Roxy Music and Charles Aznavour, to culminate in The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha, a song favoured and translated by Brel. This made a very impressive curtain call.

As a presenter, Clayson is funny, affable and engaging. As a performer, he is totally commanding, singing as if possessed by the spirit of the chanson. This was a mesmerising show: I could have been in a café in the back streets of Montmartre.