FAME IS FRANKIE’S FLAME

FRANCES RUFFELLE ( or Frankie to her friends) has this thing about Georgie Fame and Yeh, Yeh, his 1965 hit with the Blue Flames. Ruffelle ( right) ‘ loves’ the song, she told me, because it was released in the year of her birth, and marks her own life story from ‘ heartbreak to empowerment’. She calls her cabaret show I Say Yeh- Yeh and will duet the number with Craig Bierko, the U. S. actor she calls her ‘ bloke’, at the Pizza Express Live in Holborn, London, on September 3. She’ll also perform the song Best Friend with Victoria HamiltonBarritt, from Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party, which they appeared in at the Other Palace. She told me the I Say YehYeh show is bookended with tunes from Les Miserables and she’ll sing L’un Vers L’autre: ‘ It was the original song written for Eponine [ the part Frances created], but it never made the British production. It was the first music played to me when I was the only member of the show who had been cast, and I have always loved it.’ The set will also feature songs associated with chanteuse Edith Piaf.