Age did not weary Baxter

Press, 7 April 1979, Page 13

Age did not weary Baxter

A. K. GRANT

Thursday night’s television was distinguished by the transmission of the “Stanley Baxter Moving Picture Show” from South Pacific Television. Mind you, South Pacific did its usual trick of not telling us how old the programme was. The game was given away by Baxter as Rose in the “Upstairs, Downstairs” sketch, he/she referring at one point to a 1974 television

award. In a sense it doesn’t matter that the programme was an old programme, because it was still extraordinarily good.

But, at the same time, when programmes like this are presented with some ballyhoo as “Emmywinning,” we ought to know whether the Emmy in question is in the spring or youth or ap-

proaching, the menopause. There is no doubt that Baxter is an extraordinarily gifted mimic. A particular element in his success lies in the closeness with which he approaches the sound of his subjects. If you close your eyes while he does Maurice Chevalier or Ralph Richardson, you would

swear you were hearing the originals. But he is good, not just at the big obvious targets, but also at the sort of gee-whiz American serviceman who used to appear in the wartime Hollywood Canteen musical films. Sometimes the

parody is so accurate that It merges with the original and loses its effect. Thus his' Hudson and Mrs Bridges were indistinguishable from the performances of Gordon Jackson and Angela Baddeley except in so far as they were rather better. A mimic needs, through a certain coarsenesh and

exaggeration, to remind you that he is sending his subject up, rather than doing what the subject does, better than the subject himself can do it. His director let Baxter down a bit by letting some items, like the Reg Varney send-up and the

Royal Wedding phone-in sketch, run on too long. But these blemishes were more than made up for by delightful numbers like the Maurice Chevalier song, “I'm Glad I’m Not Alive Any More”; and by the Hollywood Canteen sequence, with the stars, all played by Baxter, urging on bewildered American servicemen, also played by Baxter, the certainty of

a series of extremely inAxis victory by means of patriotic songs. All in all, a memorable

show, and a reminder, if one were needed, that when it comes to brilliant transvestite mimicry, Scotland, as exemplified by Baxter, can knock Sassenachs like Danny La Rue into a cocked marshmallow any day of the week. It was a good night for comedy, with the excellent