Joan Savage

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Joan Savage

Can you sing, do impressions, comedy, rip out torch ballads, wink and put your tongue out all at the same time? Joan could. There was nobody quite like her

Can you do better than to quote an artist's own programme notes? Our Joan seems a little puzzled about her own. Quote (from the programme of 70 Girls 70)

'In the theatre Joan has appeared in numerous television pantomimes as well as starring at the London Palladium for ten months with Sheila Hancock and George Cole.'

Well … Let's skip the TV pantos that play in theatres. Yes, she was at the London Palladium, but it wasn't with Messrs Hancock and Cole but in a 1963 variety show headed by Arthur Haynes and Frank Ifield (both once names to be conjured with). Joan Savage, one of the most energetic and eager to please soubrettes in the business, was there doing her act with her husband, Ken Morris. They were one of the last variety acts to play Britain, he - a smiling and droll presence at the piano - while Joan pulled funny faces and sang, sometimes 'Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries'. Joan had a way of singing, winking her eye and putting out her tongue at the same time. No wonder they want to bring back variety. To put the record straight, the Palladium show was called Swing Along. It opened on 17 May 1963, closing only in mid-December after 394 performances.

Born in Blackpool, her career was begun at the Blackpool Tower Circus when she was only twelve, playing in The Tower Children's Revue. Thankfully, she left the sawdust ring and became a well-known performer, principally on radio, where she established herself as a staple of Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 2, appearing regularly in the programmes until the millenium. She had more than one series of her own, and in the days when television accepted such performers she was frequently seen, doing impressions or singing or just trying to keep us happy. Summer seasons continued well into her more mature years, when audiences could wonder at her wonderful professionalism. On radio, she would often give her Judy Garland medley (almost as good as Garland) and her music hall medley, which she performed over many years without ever altering one nuance of her delivery.

The West End theatre didn't really consider her very respectable. It was very mistaken, and when she got the chance she could be tremendous. One recalls a memorable performance as Maxine in Stepping Out at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and her leading part in something called, unpromisingly, Fur Coat and No Knickers. In repertory, she also played Mona in Dames at Sea and Mama Norton in Chicago. London proved a harder nut to crack, although Swing Along had firmly placed her as a variety performer. After Ken Morris' early death, she had to make her way as a solo artist.

Joan Savage with Jack Tripp in Divorce Me, Darling!
Her skills as a comedienne were at last exercised in London when she was offered a take-over from Anna Dawson in Alan Melville's retrospective of revues, Deja Revue, at the New London (not the Palladium, as Joan will have it) - the show's stars being George Cole and Sheila Hancock. One of the show's contributors told me that he considered Savage was much funnier than Dawson, but after the show closed revue was washed up and there was nothing similar to offer her. But she always seemed to be around, playing at the seaside, or in clubs or on radio or on tour.

In 1991 she had the supporting role of Gert in the American show (based on a British comedy by Peter Coke) 70, Girls, 70 at the Vaudeville Theatre. It was a lovely showcase for a gathering of British leading ladies who over the years had been dreadfully neglected, notably Pip Hinton and Miss Savage. She often managed to stop the proceedings with her big number. At the end of it, the evening's star, Dora Bryan, had an entrance and some dialogue. She used to wait for the applause to die down and say 'Sorry to interrupt you …' Somehow, the role in 70, Girls, 70 let Savage exploit the particular relationship she had with an audience, and there she was, singing and winking as she always had. It was her last West End musical proper.

She played Stella Deems in the radio production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, broadcast from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane Theatre in Christmas 1996, breaking the place up as she usually did. When Divorce Me, Darling!, Sandy Wilson's update on The Boy Friend, was revived at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the summer of 1997, Savage was cast in the smallish comedy role of Lady Brockhurst, played in the original London production by the glorious Margot Boyd. Miss Boyd would have marvelled at the laughs Savage got, and with little difficulty she emerged as the glory of an evening that was a bit of a curate's egg. But there was to be no West End transfer. Her final appearance in a musical was as a leading lady of a little American show, No Way To Treat a Lady, at the Arts Theatre, for which she won good notices.

Those who knew about her, appreciated her, but she should have done much more in musicals - parts that allowed her to sing, wink and put out her tongue would have been ideal. Somewhere, at least, there will always be plenty of recordings of her in the radio archives, and here her achievements were very considerable. You don't get to sing solo with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, or the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra unless they think you're a real pro, and that is something Savage indubitably was.

Selected discography
Original cast recordings of: 70, Girls, 70 Divorce Me, Darling! [Chichester Festival Theatre production]
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