upfront
Katherine Jenkins
The pop-classical titan discusses her new album of movie standards Cinema Paradiso, lockdown-era home livestreams and being 99.7% Welsh.
So how’ve you been keeping the last 18 months or so? I made a promise at the beginning of the pandemic that I would do free concerts from my house every Saturday night on Facebook. I thought that would only be for a few weeks and ended up doing a whole year of them! My whole family loved it actually – my kids are dancing around in the background, my husband was managing the WiFi and the backing tracks. I’m really happy we did it because it came from a place of admiring the amazing NHS workers. But you know, nothing beats being on a stage in a real theatre with amazing musicians in front of a gorgeous audience singing along. So I’m really excited to get back out there.
Especially coming back to Wales. It must be so emotional when you do get to perform here again. Absolutely. All the differences in rules meant that for a long time I really couldn’t come down to Wales, so it made me even more excited than ever to perform. You always want to do your best when you go home. I did a [DNA home analysis kit] 23andme the other day – have you done one of those? My friend bought me one as a birthday present. They email you saying, many people have got multiple countries in their background… then told me I was 99.7% Welsh! And the 0.3% came from Yorkshire.
Are you a fan of all the films Cinema Paradiso’s tracklisting comes from, just the music or a bit of both? They’re all songs that had a story behind me recording them. My dad was known for singing Singing In The Rain at family parties. I sang Moon River when my best friend walked down the aisle at her wedding. And, and, you know, there's, there's, each one has got a story I wanted to do. Somewhere Far Away is from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and I’ve just been working with Ryuichi Sakamoto, who did the soundtrack. So, they've all got different personal reasons as well as being iconic moments in film.
Venue Cymru, Llandudno, Wed 17 Nov; St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Thurs 18 Nov. Tickets: £28.50/£28. Info:
venuecymru.co.uk /
stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk
CARL MARSH
John Lydon, I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right
John Lydon’s latest and currently ongoing tour promises an “untamed, unscripted, and uncensored” one-man show from the punk icon, which is how you’d expect one of the faces of Britain’s most raucous music genres to be at any given time. The Sex Pistols and PiL (Public Image Ltd) frontman was once and still is mostly, to a certain extent, notorious for his contributions to the aforementioned genre in its 70s heyday - not to mention its follow- up in post-punk. Nowadays, as his tour tagline makes clear, he’s more synonymous with espousing divisive political and social commentary on hot button issues, from gay marriage to Brexit to the American Presidential race, which as a dual US citizen, he actually has a modicum of influence on. Depending on where you yourself sit on those kinds of issues, Lydon is somewhere between ‘national treasure’ and ‘professional contrary opinion haver’ on morning talk shows.
He also remains an ardent supporter of representing and lobbying for the thoughts and feelings of the working class, of which is he a proud member, and is one of the last surviving ‘true’ bastions of the now revered punk movement, the mainstream acceptance of which he finds to be the {least} punk thing possible. “All of these people talking about the 40th birthday of punk are fucking arseholes to me,” he told Lower Class Mag in 2016. “They were not there, they do not belong.” Johnny Rotten is certainly as unpredictable and polarising as ever, with a ‘still angry’ energy that he will doubtless be channelling into his performances around the UK at the moment.
Created to coincide with the release of his autobiography of the same name, I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right will offer audiences Lydon’s views on life, insights into his long and varied career in music and other facets of pop culture, as well as a Q&A session. There are also meet ‘n’ greet packages available in select venues if you want to get a little more up and close personal with him - at your own peril, perhaps.
The Lyric, Camarthen, Sat Nov 6. Tickets: £30 (£45 for VIP package). Info:
theatrausirgar.co.uk
Grand Pavillion, Porthcawl, Mon Nov 8. Tickets: £30 (£40 for meet ‘n’ greet). Info:
awenboxoffice.com
HANNAH COLLINS 24
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