Coming This Weekend: High Spirits!

I've spent years hoping that Encores! would bring back the Noel Coward musical High Spirits (based on Blithe Spirit), but it looks like Musicals in Mufti got the jump on the City Center revivalists—and I'll take it.

The production, to be performed this weekend, features Carol Kane as well as ... I'm a fan of both the British and United States cast albums (and I was weaned on Petula Clark's cover of the song "You'd Better Love Me," which was the B-side of "Downtown"), so I'm really looking forward to finding out how the show plays, even in the scaled-down version I can expect from Musicals in Mufti. [UPDATE June 12, 2009 It looks like the production is now sold out.]

Here's Lena Horne covering "You'd Better Love Me."



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DEPARTMENT OF BRILLIANT IDEAS DEPARTMENT. Through offline discussions, some of you might be familiar with one of my pet ideas: a Web-based program that can identify tunes.

Well, I've learned from NY1 that a company called midomi claims to have created such a marvel. If you try it, let me know how much you like the actualization of the idea which was mine. (This could've been handy when I was obsessed with "You'd Better Love Me" and "People Make the World Go Round.")

In related news, I still haven't been paid for suggesting that Casino Royale should be remade.

Want to try out midomi? Try these tunes....

Here's Shirley Bassey singing "You'd Better Love Me" from the neglected musical High Spirits.



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And here's a Freddie Hubbard cover of "People Make the World Go Round."



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Photo: David Marc Fischer