I am greatly looking forward to Tuesday night’s star-studded opening of the Ambassador Theatre Group’s Aylesbury Waterside Theatre. This is chiefly because it will bring me into close proximity with the wonderful Cilla Black, who is performing the ceremony. One of the great singers of the Sixties, in my opinion, she produced a version of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling better even than that of The Righteous Brothers (and you won’t find many people saying that!).
I am also eagerly awaiting a face-to-face meeting with actor Ronnie Barker, in the form of the portrait figure of him produced for the theatre by the brilliant Woodstock-based sculptor Martin Jennings. Martin is responsible for — among other splendid works — the incredibly lifelike statue of Sir John Betjeman that graces the new St Pancras Station and a recent portrait of best-selling author Philip Pullman.
Looking at Ronnie face-on will, I feel sure, eliminate the impression I get from the angled study supplied by the Press Association’s photographer that Martin has mistaken the subject of his commission — and given us Denis Healey.
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