Elisa Caleb, David Hare and friends

At 6.45 on Friday night the National Theatre crowd was waiting for the start of David Hare's play about the near collapse of capitalism in 2008. The Power of Yes was a hot ticket (thanks, NT press office for helping out) and I'd expected to be lined up on Row J with a ruck of bankers keen to see themselves on stage, however much mocked, and happy to celebrate the return of their bonuses (ever so cautiously).

Instead, we Yes-goers were mostly men and women who, to judge from their looks and cries, thought that the City tumbrils had stopped too soon and that the playwright's guillotine (and the public's too) should have taken more necks than it did. So a fairly typical audience for a David Hare play.

Our own party had much to celebrate - and did; the first marriage of one of our oldest friends, the cheer and good countenance of a friend who is enduring chemotherapy, and the NT stage debut (as a character  in Yes not an actor) of another. But curiously, two days later, the memory strongest in mind is of the show before the show, one of those singers who entertain the queuing and drinking and don't often get noticed too much.

Elisa Caleb, photographed here by Ian McHugh, is, as I discovered,  already a well known artist playing gigs around town. She sings jazz classics in a light airy Brazilian style and her husband's songs as though they were already classics. After My Funny Valentine, which is my second favourite of all songs and Jo Caleb's The Wind, which I hummed both ways back and forth to the bar, I bought the CD, Carry Me Home, £12 from the singer herself.

Anyone who bought a bit of early Ella Fitzgerald Decca vinyl at a gig in the mid-forties, would have been pleased, I'm sure. Did they ever sell records even at small shows in those days? Did Lady Ella sell them? I don't know.

Anyway, there is just a sparkling hint of the First Lady of Song in Elisa Caleb. I've been listening to pre-show star ever since the bankers left the big stage.

Comments

[Candadai Tirumalai]

The long love affair between Britain and jazz (in the early 1940s, Philip Larkin remembered, a jazz record was often heard in the rooms of Oxford undergraduates) is a remarkable phenomenon. London has a special place in that history. And
stockbrokers are no strangers to jazz.

[Ruth Caleb]

Hi Peter, I just wanted you to know how delighted Elisa and Jo were to learn from your blog how much you had enjoyed their performance last Friday. They have worked so hard over so many years and through some major difficulties in order to become the performers they are today and as Jo's mum I am incredibly proud of their achievements so far. Thank you for giving your attention to the gig, and continuing to listen to Elisa's CD.