Singing Shakespeare

Mar 22 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

He loves pop music but prefers the Bard of Avon, so the Mersey DJ is now singing the songs of the great playwright. David Charters reports

HIS ears are tuned to life and in a licking of the lips he can slip from one accent to the next, smooth as stout, until you have the full cast of our comedic characters on parade in one conversation.

Here they come – the Glaswegian, the Scouser, the Brummie, the Dubliner, the plummy vicar, the Cockney scallywag, the country priest, the Ulsterman, the Geordie and all the rest.

It’s a grand gift, enabling him to dress every story in native style.

Of course, you would expect something like it from a DJ praised for his patter, sharpened on those lonely stages of the brave in northern clubs and theatres, where he performed for years as a stand-up comic.

These days, however, he is as likely to be found singing for his supper from the song-book of William Shakespeare, who also wrote some good plays and sonnets along the way.

Few accustomed to the Johnny Kennedy of popular radio knew that he was also a fine tenor with a sweet tone of deceptive power.

It has become a cliche to suggest that a yearning to play Hamlet lurks in the hearts of comedians, though most “serious” actors would quail at the prospect of appearing behind the microphone at the annual Garters’ and Braces’ night in the Bricktown East Social, Recreational and Sporting Lounge.

But Johnny has been a Shakespeare buff since passing the 11-plus to Alsop High School, Walton, Liverpool. Then he graduated from Sheffield University with a BA (honours) in Shakespearean Studies.

After that, he had spells teaching, before finding his groove as a light entertainer, singing, telling stories and acting – most notably as Joe Wragg in Anne Dalton’s musical adaptation of Silas Hocking’s Her Benny, staged before packed houses at the Liverpool Empire in the early 1990s. He also sang in the acclaimed musical, 99 Heyworth Street, by the brothers John and Tony Bryan.

But it was as a DJ on Radio City in the 1980s that he won a mass audience and was three times voted Whitbread Radio Personality of the Year by readers of our sister paper, the Liverpool Echo.

His shows involved a lot of banter, sprinkled with local knowledge, and, most famously, Bride of the Week – a kind of Candid Camera of the air-waves, in which he would phone an unsuspecting victim with news that could wreck her wedding plans.

As with all such ideas, the humour hung on perfect timing and a sure sense of when the joke had gone far enough.

This broadcasting success led to top-billing in pantos and summer shows at major venues.

But Shakespeare recitals appeal to a different type of audience – not better, just different. The idea came to him when theatre critics noted that his singing in Her Benny was almost operatic.

Johnny had sung in the popular vein since being a schoolboy treble, but he began wondering if he could do more with his voice and approached Una McAulay, founder of the Una Voce Opera Company.

She suggested that he should have lessons with John Penlington-Williams at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

These went well and Johnny still has singing lessons, now with Edward Darcy-Hatton in Liverpool.

He has sung all the popular arias, such as Nessun Dorma and La Donna Mobile on stage, on one occasion adding Blue Suede Shoes to the repertoire, surprising and delighting the opera audience.

In common with many people who have risen from a working-class background into showbusiness, Johnny doesn’t like the snobbery which prevails in certain branches of entertainment.

But he is dedicated to Shakespeare.

“Grammar school changed my life in a lot of ways,” he says. “In the first year we did The Tempest and I played Caliban, half man/half beast. I just loved it. Some of the kids hated it and thought it was boring, but it struck a chord with me. I loved the wonderful language.

“There is a marvellous line in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes’ film. When I watched it, I said, ‘yes, yes, yes, that was me at 11’. A kid said that Shakespeare was like mashed potatoes. You couldn’t get enough of it in your mouth.

“Shakespeare wrote a lot of songs. Twelfth Night finishes with The Rain It Raineth Every Day (Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain). Then there’s ‘Who Is Sylvia?’ and ‘It Was A Lover And His Lass. My Favourite is Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I. Full Fathom Five is a beautiful song.

“I think people sometimes expect these songs to be dirges, but they are not. They are full of fun and life and love and all sorts of things.”

Often Shakespeare’s songs are sung to traditional folk melodies and Johnny’s reputation has spread beyond Merseyside. Next year he will be singing at the Leek Arts Festival.

“The best thing I have done was singing at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, during the Shakespeare Festival,” he says. “Shakespeare is buried there and it was awesome to be standing feet away from his remains.”

On April 6, he stars at the Actors Studio at Seel Street, Liverpool, as part of the European Capital of Culture.

Despite all this, Johnny still has a radio show, broadcasting with his old pal Wally Scott on Dune FM, based in Southport, from 9am to noon on Sundays.

So he hangs up one voice and reaches for another.

davidcharters