Wee lassie from Dennistoun shows she still has plenty to shout about after 60 years
★★★★★
THE title of Lulu’s 60th anniversary (and final) tour is a memorable line from the hit TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (which featured the Scottish singer in four episodes). In one of those episodes, the starstruck Edina (played by Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley) famously, and frantically, order “champagne for Lulu!”
The show’s title references just one highlight from Lulu’s extraordinary, six-decade career. There could have been many others. She might, for instance, have mentioned the support given to her breakthrough song Shout by John Lennon and Paul Mccartney in 1964 when she was just 15 years old. Or she could have opted for her victory at the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest (in a four-way tie) representing the UK with Boom Bang-a-bang aged 19. Or, perhaps, her memorable Bond theme tune for 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun.
These milestones, among many others, were celebrated in a slickly put-together show which combined rendition, the singer said that, some 57 years on, she still feels honoured to have been involved in such a “groundbreaking, anti-racist film”.
Like her other early career highs, she told us, the success of both film and theme song made her pinch herself: after all, she was just “a wee lassie” from the working-class district live music with autobiographical chat, of Dennistoun in the East End of videos and photographs. In one Glasgow. touching moment early on, Lulu Yet, as the fabulous set of songs Lulu recalled the exhilaration of being selected for the show reminded us, she asked, not only to perform in, but also had only just got started. The decades to sing the theme song for the 1967 to come would include a surprisingly movie To Sir with Love starring the nuanced version of The Man Who Sold great African-american actor Sidney the World, which David Bowie gave to Poitier as a teacher suffering racism in her in 1974. a tough East End school (Lulu played Lulu’s performance of one of Bowie’s one of the unruly pupils). truly great songs was a highlight of the
Dedicating the emotive song to show, not least because (thanks to Poitier (who died in 2022) in a heartfelt some smart video and audio editing) it became a nostalgic duet between her and the English singer-songwriter (who passed away in 2016). Another affecting moment came when she performed alongside a video of her 2002 TV duet with the late Bee Gee Maurice Gibb (the pair were married for four years in the early Seventies).
Supported by a fine backing band, the 75-year-old danced around the stage with the energy of a woman less than half her age. Lulu was always known for her ability to unfailingly belt it out, and her voice has retained its power and range.
Glasgow was the obvious place for Lulu to begin her final tour. As she received multiple standing ovations, she seemed genuinely moved. Not bad, indeed, for a wee lassie from Dennistoun. Champagne for Lulu Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow