Born in Swansea, Wales, Bethany Jameson was brought up French speaking in Belgium, studied languages at Oxford University and dance at Arts Educational. She now lives in Christchurch, Dorset. Bethany started singing jazz and swing, with Ritzy Chicks and solo in UK, France and Belgium. Five times UK Songwriters’ Contest semi-finalist, soloist in musical theatre reviews and played the lead in new jazz blues musical Loose Change. Her work has included a commission for Southwark Playhouse’s Bastille Festival, London and new music theatre show ‘The Accordionist’ with Romano Viazzani. Her song ‘Just Her Younger Man’ was judged ‘A Showstopper!’ by London Fringe Festival.
She launched her award winning Cabaret Vérité quartet with Romano in 2012, adding to the team Declan Daly, virtuoso violinist and Ben Hazleton, extraordinary jazz double bassist. They toured their first show ‘Soirée Parisienne/On the Banks of the Seine’ and sold out venues such as The Pheasantry and Battersea Barge, two of Time Out’s top 10 London Cabaret venues, Bridport Lyric Theatre, Salisbury Arts Centre and the National Theatre. Her performance was rated ‘engaging, glamorous and sophisticated’ by the queen of cabaret herself, Dillie Keane, and ‘The UK’s own little sparrow’ (Rainlore’s World of Music). She performs regularly at The Green Note in Camden at the London Bastille Festival and at the Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec.
Bethany is launching her new show Rendez-vous A Paris with the quartet in July 2013 with some brand new comedy cabaret songs. She has also just started another musical project with two superb Dorset-based musicians, guitarist Simon Newton and accordionist Janet Beale, launching in Autumn 2013.
The following is an interview with Bethany. All questions were set by her friends and peers.
1. When I lived in France they said I had ‘Feet of English’ and the ‘Heart of France’, which part of your anatomy is English and/or French?
Having spent most of my life wishing for a long straight nose, I discovered only recently that a turned up nose ‘un nez retroussé’ is considered sexy in France. If I’d known that before my teenage years could have been quite different! So a French nose. Not sure about an English bit of me. I’ll have to give that some thought.
2. Where would you prefer to be Pigalle or the Latin Quarter?
My favourite part of Paris is the Marais, not too far from the Latin Quarter. Does that count? Quartier Latin is very studenty and fun but in spite of my song ‘Just Her Younger Man’ they really are a bit too young for me! I love the pink brick square: Place des Vosges and all the Jewish food shops and cafés. Best falafel in the world I’d say. Also really buzzy gay scene and very multicultural.
3. Who is your favourite poet and why?
I’ve got several favourites. Hilary Menos writes amazingly moving and visual stories. Spike Milligan, crazy but so funny. One of the English poets I was given to read when I was a kid by my Dad, who was a very sensible chap on the outside but a genuine ‘Goon’ on the inside. Beaudelaire’s La Chatte is very haunting and sensual. And a line from a Keats’ poem on the Eve of St Agnes. … ‘unclasps her warmed jewels one by one’ … sends shivers.
4. Why are Piaf and Brel your favourites?
Because each of their songs is such a powerful story, mostly heart wrenching and powerful, some funny but usually dark funny. It makes them so intense when you sing them. I’m not a romantic. I find it difficult to sing beautiful love songs that don’t have a dark twist somewhere. When we perform the songs I try to give the audience the essence of the story, without translating the whole thing. For example, Les trois cloches, is about a man called Jean François Nicot, no one special, just a villager in this remote village in Normandy. The bells ring for his christening in the first verse, when he’s a tiny baby, for his wedding, 19 year old boy marrying gentle Elise, and for his funeral, the bells ring ‘obsédante et monotone’ but the tell the living to have faith in eternal love. As it’s Piaf, who was exceptionally religious but also very wild, I’m never quite sure how to read the ending. Brel, my favourite songs are almost too intense for our shows: Orly and Ne Me Quitte Pas. She loves la Chanson des Vieux Amants. “When you’ve lived together for 20 years, every piece of furniture can tell a story, we’ve had our storms, your affairs, my secrets, but wouldn’t life be dull if we lived every day in peace?”
5. Where did you get the red dress that you wear in your performances and how does it stay up?
I made the red dress and gloves for the show. It’s the first costume I made myself and I’m very proud of it. Not least because of the wonderful comments I’ve had. You don’t want to look too closely at the stitching though. How does it stay up? It doesn’t, as a few audiences have discovered! I have found a solution but it’s not very glamorous so I won’t spoil the mystique!
6. Are the words to ‘Just Her Younger Man’ autobiographical?
Most of my songs are a patchwork of different people’s experiences and some are my own but I would dream of saying which!
7. If you had a French stage name, what would it be?
I did think about having a French stage name. Stéphanie. The name of the mum of a childhood friend of mine.
8. Where do you get your fabulous costumes?
I had help from a team of very talented students at Bournemouth Arts University for the black fishtail skirt, and I love exploring charity shops and vintage shops and markets for things that I can alter and play around with. Since I discovered I could sew myself, fabric shops are a treasure trove, particularly Shepherd’s Bush and around that area, and locally, Fabricland.
9. What was your worst/best wardrobe moment?
The reaction I got when I first came on stage in the red dress, then the moment I realised that it had dropped below modesty level, and noticing that the bra I was wearing really wasn’t up to the limelight it was getting. Fancy short changing an audience like that!
10. What is your favourite post-gig moment?
A couple of moments come to mind. One was winning the Cabaret Excess’s Best Act award on the Battersea Barge and coming back on stage to receive the award. The Barge was absolutely packed and being such a small space the noise was amazing. The other was at the Bridport Lyric Theatre. A lovely man called Ant had bought more than half of the tickets for the show for his friends and family to celebrate a big birthday. The show just turned into a party, everyone joined in and didn’t stop! Can I have another one? When we played at the National Theatre it was mid-afternoon, so an opportunity for our various small children and relatives who don’t normally get to see our shows. At the end, I was descended upon by a small army of little girls who had not seen me in costume before and wanted to touch the soft velvety fabric of the dress. I felt like a cross between a fairy princess and big red teddy bear.
11. French jazz and tango are major influences on your song writing and performances. What influences does or can the UK offer?
I’m a huge fan of the great ladies of Jazz and Swing and we have and have had some amazing singers in the UK: Shirley Bassey and Dusty Springfield are my favourites. We also have a great new cabaret scene that’s been emerging for a few years now and really taking hold. I adore Fascinating AIDA and have had some wonderful support from Dillie Keane who’s my idol, (treat yourself to ‘Cheap Flights’ on Youtube!) and from Sarah Louise Young who sang with FA for a while and is now doing wonderful things on her own. We’re including one of her songs in our next show Rendez-vous A Paris, that we launch in July. It’s called What Have the English. Just brilliant!
12. For anyone following in your footsteps what would you say is the most important advice you could pass on?
I was told when I was at stage school that ‘singing’s not for you dear’ and it took me a hell of a long time to get over it and get out there and sing. My advice is by all means seek out feedback and listen to it but if it doesn’t fit with your vision of yourself and what you really want from life, ignore it. That’s true for the praise as well as the criticism. Then be prepared to put in ridiculous amounts of very hard work and never stop learning. Don’t worry if you take a few wrong turns, it’s just as useful to know what doesn’t work as to know what does.
Also, a quote from Declan Donnellan’s brilliant book The Actor & The Target: ‘We do not develop the imagination by forcing it into prodigious and self-conscious feats of creativity. We develop our imagination by observation and attention, when we simply see things are they are.’ And when we get our egos and anxieties out of our own way.
13. What elements of playing and organising shows do you most/least enjoy?
When I’m on stage with the Cabaret Vérité team: Declan Daly our virtuoso violinist, Ben Hazleton, double bass genius, and Romano Viazzani, master accordionist, composer and our MD, and also our other Cabaret Vérité players Roger Linley and Alan Gibson, and knowing the audience are enjoying them as much as I am. Most of all we want our shows to be entertaining and to take people somewhere exciting and special. We have a great time rehearsing too. It’s so exciting when I’ve put some lyrics together and sent them over to Romano, sometimes with a bit of a tune sketched out, then hearing the guys playing his arrangements for the first time. What I least enjoy. Learning lyrics! Even the songs I’ve written myself. In fact they are the worst because they’ve usually been edited a few times and I have all the different versions in my head. When the performance adrenaline is flowing, all sorts of things can come out.
14. If you ran up a hill what or who would most likely to see from the top?
More hills, as far as the eye can see. Green hills, like in West Bay or the Massif Central.
For more information about Bethany or to buy tickets for her performances:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bethany-Jamesons-Cabaret-V%C3%A9rit%C3%A9/190946760992327?fref=ts
www.bethanyjameson.co.uk/shows-tickets
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