Me, I’m not much one for reverence – too much often does more harm than good, especially when folk insist on ‘authenticity’. Fuck ‘authenticity’

It’s odd how an interpretation or performance of some toons can make or break that toon. And how we all vary in which interpretation or performance we like and dislike. I’ve just heard Send In The Clowns on Radio 3 and as almost - almost - always with that song, I cringed a little.

It seems almost always to be done with reverence (as in ‘with total fucking reverence’), thus upping the cringe factor a quite a bit. In my book - and I stress these things ARE personal - most cringey are when female thesps (the ones who are not primarily singers) sing it, as in Ms J Dench at ‘the Proms’, natch.

Unfortunately, I can’t off-hand think of an example which has zero cringe, though in the right hands it is a great song. It’s just with that song the right hands seem to be rare as hens teeth.

Here’s another example: watching Turn: Washington’s Spies a few years ago (and re-watching it now), I first came across the long-traditional sailors’ shanty Spanish Ladies sung by the Australian Sarah Blasko. For me Blasko hits just the right note, understated melancholy and fuck-all reverence.

In the video it’s the first one, followed by, several crass fuckers bleeding reverence from every pore, and then another female singer who again misses by a country mile, though not quite as as badly.

It’s a delicate thing: like almost everything, get it right and spot on and you’re laughing. Get it wrong . . . well, take up bowls or something.