GRACIE FIELDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1939, Page 4

GRACIE FIELDS

IN GREAT FORM ON THE AIR. Gracie Fields came on the air in the terrific good form we know of old (writes Seton Margrave in the "Daily Mail”). She sang without a tremor of uncertainty, as if she had never been ill, and in a hundred moods known to her. million fans —gay and serious, mocking and boisterous, proud and humble, dreamy and intimate. Gracie started right away by buttonholing her audience in her old confidential style, and hardly waiting for John Watt to announce the numbers. First she sang "Over the Rainbow.” Then she gave an eccentric number in her croaking, joking, squealing, and chortling manner. Next a romantic song trilling along on her well-known high violin-like notes. She joked with Louis Levy, "gagged” the revue chorus, and said: “Come on, everybody—you’ve got to help me out of this.” It was a variety show of all the Gracies we have ever heard. At the end of her broadcast she turned to her excited audience and said: “Thank you very much. I'm not ’arf_ ’ot. Now I’m going to cool off a bit.’” And so the best broadcast the 8.8. C. have given us —well, it seems for years —same to an end. It was Gracie revived and on top of the world.