Lichfield Live reports that Paulus is bringing Looking For Me Friend to Lichfield and cannot wait to share the love of Victoria Wood’s work with the audience. Tickets can be purchased here.
The feature continues, “Looking For Me Friend will see BBC’s Paulus The Cabaret Geek joined by accompanist Michael Roulston at the Garrick on 19th September.
The show will see them take the audience on a whistle-stop tour of 21 of the comedian’s best-loved songs, including the Ballad of Barry and Freda and It Would Never Have Worked.
Paulus said it was a privilege to be able to bring the performer’s work to the stage.
“When I’m doing the show, it’s a joy too and I look to diminish any barrier between myself and the audience who are all there because they love Vic.
“They’re not there to see me – it’s not because they’re my biggest fans, they are there because they love Victoria of course!”
“If Michael and I can share that love and celebrate Victoria with them, and keep ourselves out of the equation almost, then hopefully we have done our job properly.”
Victoria Wood’s career saw her work as a comic, actress, lyricist, singer and composer until her death in 2016. But her work continues to influence many, including Paulus.
“I think I was ten when I first saw Victoria on television. She often said in interviews about the experience of seeing Joyce Grenfell on stage standing alone and commanding the space – that very much spoke to me.
“In the 80s, Victoria’s look on television was very androgynous. She chose to wear jeans, men’s shirts, men’s blazers and she had spikey hair like myself. I thought it was just tremendous to see someone on television who was playing their own game, banging their own drum especially on a channel like the BBC in a time when for me being different, being other, was hard.
“Growing up in Kent, in the 80s, people were much less accepting and kind than they are now.
“I think Victoria has always spoken to outliers somehow. She seemed to be more interested in celebrating the elasticated waist than the new skinny celebrity that had just hit our airwaves – or what would now be our social media – and I just think she tuned in really well to the things that most of us worry about and experience on a daily basis, such as tea bags, oven gloves and digging fluff out of the tumble dryer.
“Life is full of tiny little annoyances and tiny little miracles, and if you open your eyes and say ‘alright come on then’ to the day then I then I think you can experience some wonderful joy.
“I think Victoria knew how to find that joy and share it with other people.”
Tickets for Looking For Me Friend in Lichfield are £22 and can be booked online here. And click here for ticket details of other dates in the tour.
