In Conversation with Liza Pulman: All Things Barbra Streisand

What prompted you to create your solo show Liza Pulman Sings Streisand?
About 10 years ago one of my Fascinating Aida colleagues needed some time off to recover from an illness, and so we found ourselves on a kind of enforced break. It made sense to develop my own show and so I formed my amazing 6-piece band and we hit the road together with my first show Songs Of Hollywood.  One of the songs I sang in that was Evergreen from the film A Star Is Born, and so many people told me I sounded like Barbra Stresiand that I started to look at how and why that might be. I realized that she has been such a huge influence on my singing and on my approach to music that I wanted to celebrate that somehow.

Is it a tribute show?
Well, I pay tribute to her but its by no means a tribute show. I don’t do an impersonation of her or put on a curly wig at any point! But, for me, its a chance to celebrate this extraordinary woman by singing just a handful of some of the songs that she’s made famous throughout her long and glorious career.

How did you pick the songs for your Streisand show?
That was a far harder task than I had originally thought. She has been performing and recording for over 6 decades and choosing the songs that would go into my show was a real Sophie’s choice. In a 90-minute show there just isn’t time to sing everything, but In the end I hope that it’s a fine balance between the hits and a clutch of some of those fabulous songs from her back catalogue through which I am then able to weave a narrative. Frankly I would be lynched if I didn’t sing the likes of Evergreen, The Way We Were and People.

The arrangements and orchestrations are very different, who did them?
It’s something we’ve strived to do to make our interpretation of these songs unique to us and I work very closely with my brilliant musical director Joseph Atkins. The ideas tend to start with me at my piano at home and then Joe and I will spend hours making them work together, going over every small detail, sometimes spending 40 mins on one bar of music! Then Joe goes off and orchestrates them and brings our ideas  to life making our 6-piece band sound like the London Philharmonic!!

Is it daunting to perform alone?
Actually I love it! I’ve recently been working with the brilliant Joe Stilgoe as one part of a duo and have of course spent 22 years as one part of a trio with Fascinating Aida. There’s a wonderful safety net when you share the stage with any of these amazing performers but in my Streisand show I am far from alone! I’m backed by six fantastic  musicians and we are a proper family. When we first started with the Hollywood  show back in the dim, distant past, I was much more out front and they were more of a backing band, but these days I ask our production manager to put us as close to each other on stage as he dare. One of the great joys of the show is the relationship I have with these fantastic players and the audiences love to see that.

Tell us about your path to becoming a singer?
I always sang as a kid. My mum, my sister and I would sing close-harmony on long car journeys and my sister and I sang together for years as “The Pulman Sisters”, singing music from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. We started out just singing at our parent’s parties but ended up singing in the foyers of the National Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall. We were good. We made a great sound, like only siblings can. Then I went to The Guildhall School of Music and Drama where I studied singing for six long years, before joining Glyndebourne where I spent several years as a junior principle. I even sang Barbarina in the Marriage of Figaro with Sir George Solti conducting. It was a pretty amazing start!

You grew up in a very sociable and creative home, did you know then that your life would be on stage?
With my mother, the actress Barbara Young, (Coronation Street,  Last of the Summer Wine) and my father, the screen-writer Jack Pulman (I Claudius, War & Peace), I was surrounded by writers, actors, directors from a very early age, in fact, I don’t really remember anything else. There was a brief period where I fancied being a vet (not long after my goldfish, Felicity Fruit-Cake, died from unnatural causes) but the performing gene was always going to get me in the end.

Who has been the most important influence on your musical life?
I’m not sure there’s been only one musical influence on me. There’s a bag of them. Sinatra, Garland, Mabel Mercer, Al Jolson, Barbra Cook, Barbra Streisand. I love the old blues singers too; Ethel Waters, Billie Holliday, Sophie Tucker. I’d like to have been a blues singer in the 20’s and 30’s I think. All that suffering and song!

What are your desert island discs and your one luxury item?
I find the desert island question tough as there is so much wonderful music out there. My listening tastes are incredibly eclectic and I would probably have to include something by Sinatra, Elvis, Jolson, Billie Holliday, Streisand, Chet Baker, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman, Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson, Fats Waller, The Beatles… the list is endless. As for a luxury item, I’m afraid that would have to be my cat, Mr Chips.

Catch Liza Pulman Sings STREISAND at artsdepot on Thursday 23 October. Find out more here.