Making a Spectacle of Himself
Spectacle: Elvis Costello with… (ABC 2, 8.30pm Fridays and repeated at 11.30pm Thursdays) put me in a musical nirvana; here is a chat show about music by musicians. The difference with this show is that the talk is all music; influences, favourite records and song inspirations, so the usual anecdotes are kept to a minimum. This show isn’t worried about image; it’s concerned with the fans of music who happen to be famous. It’s like RocKwiz without all the stupid questions. Besides, you have to love a show that name checks Randy VanWarmer.
Little Elvis, the receding-haired, scruffy music legend, is not slick and looks like he needs a good tidy up, but is a music geek. Doing a chat show is one of the hardest gigs in telly; you ask questions, think about your next question, listen to what the guest is saying in case you have a follow-up question and tell the viewer what is happening next, all at the same time. You can see the wheels turning behind his eyes as Little Elvis is talking, and he’s nowhere near as sarcastic as I thought he would be, but it’s fascinating, entertaining music television and, I hope this doesn’t put you off, really educational (in a 45RPM kind of a way).
The first guest was one of the producers, Sir Elton John, a raconteur extraordinaire and a boon to any chat show. Elton virtually took over the show, even telling the director to roll a clip, but his generosity towards those who influenced him, like Leon Russell, Laura Nyro and David Ackles (look them up; I did), was warm and heartfelt. By letting musicians talk about what is important to them, that is, music (Derr!), rather than the trappings of fame, the show manages to humanise celebrities; it’s a show about being talented, not famous.
There were many magic moments for me; such as Elton and Little Elvis discussing how the cardboard was a better quality on US import albums, or Elton picking up Martha and the Vandellas from the airport in his Aston Martin and finding they were so poor they had to borrow money to grab their clothes from the cleaners, or Elton and Little Elvis trying to remember a song and both singing the chorus at the same time. Little Elvis and Elton even discussed the liberation of adopting a new identity, so I felt like I was eavesdropping on Reginald Dwight and Declan McManus having a chat at the local. A big bonus for those of you who take an interest in all things musical, the house band comprised Pete Thomas, Davey Faragher, Allen Toussaint (New Orleans legend) and James Burton (Big Elvis’s guitarist); they didn’t suck.
Spectacle: Elvis Costello with… is bound to lead to a plethora of similarly inspired shows, like Tache with Burt Reynolds, discussing funny giggles with actors, and Nose Job with Dannii Minogue, who will have a chat with Nicole Kidman about how to iron those annoying wrinkles out of your best gear.
This piece originally appeared in ‘The Big Issue’.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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