Liza Pulman celebrates genius of Streisand in Eastbourne

Liza said: “When I was touring my last show Songs of Hollywood, I included a song in it from A Star Is Born. That song was Evergreen which of course was not only sung by Streisand but also written by her and she even won an Oscar for it in 1976.

“The number of people who commented on how alike we sounded was extraordinary and, whilst there’s no doubting it is the most wonderful compliment, I have to admit, it’s something I had never really thought about.

“You don’t have to look too deeply to see that Barbra Streisand is an icon; a woman who has endured at the top of her game for almost 55 years now. But what I began to realise was quite how much she had influenced me as a singer and a performer and why.

“She is a singer who uses her voice as an instrument, stretching it about as far as it can go, sometimes even farther, always on the text, always on the lyric and she is a woman who refuses to be put into a box of any description.

“She is a someone who is capable of slipping on a banana skin one minute and then breaking your heart the next. As one third of Fascinating Aida and the child of a ridiculously-theatrical family, comedy is in my bones but, like Streisand, I have always wanted to use all of my peculiar bag of skills to connect with people.

“Like her, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to have people crying with laughter one minute and crying with emotion the next. Doing a show about Barbra Streisand has allowed me to do just that. Backed by my wonderful MD Joseph Atkins and our amazing band, I get to sing these amazing songs and in between these songs I get to make people laugh.

“I get to tell stories about her life, about my life, about her mother and the time she met mine and from beginning to end we have a ball and, thankfully, it seems infectious. Audiences have been wonderful and reviews have been even better than we could have possibly hoped.”

Tickets on https://royalhippodrome.com/show/liza-pulman-sings-streisand

For other stories by Phil, see: https://www.chichester.co.uk/author/Phil.Hewitt2