Episode 27 - Eurovision Special with Frances Ruffelle
Live from Wilton’s Music Hall, Frances Ruffelle joins Steve for a Eurovision-flavoured special that’s part conversation, part cabaret, and part candid therapy for performers. We range from the lore and logistics of Eurovision to the practical craft of telling a story through song, with detours via London’s music-hall history and how that lineage still informs modern cabaret and theatre.
Craft, confidence & recovery: warm-ups, rituals, quick reframes for on-stage wobbles, and the difference between “polished” and “alive”.
Training & collaborators: Sylvia Young Theatre School, working with Alan Cumming, and the anarchic wisdom of Spike Milligan.
Les Mis & legacy: what long-running roles teach you about stamina, storytelling, and staying human inside a hit.
Further reading & links
Wilton’s Music Hall (venue)
Full Transcript
Verbatim transcript, reflowed for readability. No wording changes have been made.
Hello, my name is Steve Pretty. I'm a musician, performer and composer from London. And welcome to my podcast, Steve Pretty On The Origin of the Pieces.This is the show that helps you to hear, understand and enjoy music in new ways.Hello, everyone, lovely to be back for this emergency podcast, and it is an emergency for reasons I'll explain shortly. This is a little sub-episode, episode 25C. We had another sub-episode a few weeks ago with the great Robin Ince for World Poetry Day.But this is another sub-episode for Eurovision, more of which shortly. But meanwhile, yeah, thanks for bearing with me during this podcast evolution. I know the episodes have been a bit more sporadic than usual, but there's so much going on behind the scenes.It's really quite something. I've had a lot of live stuff going on, but there's also a lot of really, really fascinating stuff going on with this podcast. I'm just generating so much that I kind of can't keep up with the edits at the moment.This week alone, I have spent an afternoon recording stuff with the Natural History Museum in London. They have a wonderful curator of mammals, who is a whale expert. So we've been talking about underwater song and whale song, and how whales might use music or otherwise, and listening to some archive recordings and all sorts of fascinating stuff.We went up to Audio Gold to digitize a load of records from the Natural History Museum collection. And yeah, anyway, it's been a lot. And then of course, I've also been speaking to opera singers.I've been speaking to people who make EDM. I've been speaking to, I made a piece of dirty rap which I performed at the Wilton's Music Hall show in April. That's all right, because of course, I've also been doing three Wilton's Music Hall shows recently, live versions of this podcast.So there's just hours and hours of really, really interesting stuff to come. So thank you for bearing with me. And do stay tuned.Speaking of which, if you head over to originofthepieces.com, that's the place for the mailing list and the Patreon and stuff. So yeah, your support there will be much appreciated and you'll be kept abreast of all the latest. So originofthepieces.com.But leading to today's episode, we should talk about what we're doing because it is an emergency because it is Eurovision Day. And Eurovision, I'm sure most of you will know what it is. Maybe lots of you might watch it, are big fans of it.Some of you might be a little bit Eurovision skeptic. I didn't really know very much about it. I'd occasionally tune into it.But before this episode, when I went away and did a bit of research about it, I didn't know a whole lot about it. But for this episode, speaking to Frances Ruffelle, who's an amazing singer and actor, musical theatre actress, who opened the role of Eponine on Broadway and in the West End in Les Miserables, won a Tony Award on Broadway, and then did our Eurovision entry for 1994, which is what we're obviously talking about here, as well as her other work. So yeah, it's a real pleasure to have Frances on the show.She came down to Wilton's and we recorded this live back in January, which was super fun. And she did two or three live tunes. In fact, we opened the interview with a bit of a live version of a tune that we used to play together.I played in her solo show, Beneath the Dress. I played in the band for that several years ago. And she did a version of Mood Indigo by Duke Ellington.And so we do a version of that to open things. And then we get into a bit about her career, a bit about her background, a bit about her history of performing in music halls, actually. And her mum, Sylvia Young, the great theatre school leader.And then we dig into Eurovision. So that's what today is all about. I think whether or not you're into Eurovision, I think you'll find today's episode really interesting.And some of the insights about how it works, and her kind of take on how she got into it is really interesting. But also, you're here at the very top of the show. She talks about her, I guess, imposter syndrome that many of us have, certainly many musicians I know have, and I also suffer from, from time to time, about not being a real musician.We talk about that, and I tell her to shut up, and that she is a real musician, and that most of us are real musicians. We don't need to be able to read full scores or conduct orchestras to be a real musician. That can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.But today's episode is, I like to try, where possible, I like to try and make this show a kind of magazine format, if you like. So having like two or three different chunks that are completely separate from one another, just so that little sort of morsels, one of which would be hopefully really interesting, and then the next one would be really interesting in a completely different way, maybe deal with a different style or a different instrumentalist or whatever it might be. But today, yeah, for reasons of time basically, I wanted to get this out on Eurovision Day and I didn't have time to finish putting the full episode together because there's loads of stuff I want to get on this next full episode to juxtapose all these different things.So instead I'm bringing you a sub episode with Frances Ruffelle. This is Frances Ruffelle recorded live at Wilton's Music Hall in January 2025. Eurovision Special.Here we go.Give it up, Frances Ruffelle.Thank you.Frances Ruffelle.I normally have a trombone joining me earlier, which keeps me on track, because I'm not really a proper musician.Nonsense.I just pretend.You've literally got a Tony Award for being a proper musical theater musician. Yeah.I just got away with it. I don't know how it happened.But that's the, people will often say I'm not a proper musician because you don't necessarily, I don't know, do you read music? I don't know.I can read the top bit.Right. Yeah.Just about. Yeah. But I think often people kind of conflate, I can't read music or I don't know what chords are, particularly whatever, with being like a proper musician. But like you've made a career out of being a musician.So you, by definition, are a musician.Yeah.No, I do get what you mean. But it's interesting because so many people, they go, right, here's your chord, boom. And I go, I don't know where my note is.And so it's a different thing. Yes, I'm a musician, but it's also, I sort of, I just, I do wade there a bit, you know. And also sometimes if you don't know what you're doing, really musically, sometimes you create something different, which we just did.I think we did. But I think that's true. But also I think like, I think there are different ways of being a musician, and not just in terms of whether you read or not, but like what you and what singers, you know, like you are incredible at, is interpreting a song in a really in-depth, beautiful way, which may be, I mean, obviously, there's lots of people who can read music and who write brilliant music who can also do that.But I think, you know, what you bring to it with theatricality and stuff is a different thing in a way. And so there's a different way of being musical, but it's, yeah.Thank you, Steve. I mean, I like to do a storytelling. That's my favourite thing, actually.Well, speaking of that, right, because so for people who don't know, Frances, you are an incredible actor and singer and musical theatre singer as well, right?Well, I shouldn't be agreeing with you, but yeah.You are. You are. You are.You're one of those things. Yes, you literally have an award to prove it. But you, and I'm sort of interested in the role that music plays in musical theatre.So I said this in a social media post about this show, which is the, whisper it. I've got this very, very well-known musical theatre singer. I don't always like musicals that much.Don't tell her.But can you, I mean, what the role of music in musical theatre is, you know, that's obviously, it's really, really central. But it also differs quite a lot from opera. So like what attracted you to musical theatre in the first place?Well, I was taken to musicals. Actually, I'm going to go right back to the beginning. My mum was an avid music hall theatre music collector.So not music hall, music hall, we're in a music hall. And so I was brought up on all the old sort of Maury Lloyd songs and, you know, gosh, I wish I'd thought about this before I walked on the stage. I can't remember all the names.But I was brought up with all that music. And I'm going to go back even further. So actually, I got my Equity Card when I was five and I did that doing a music hall act at the age of five at the Players Theatre, which had its own theatre.I believe the players also do a music hall here every year. And when I was young, not too young, when I was a young teenager, maybe about 14, my mum helped raise money for Wilton's Music Hall, which we are in now. And with Roy Harden, I don't remember, Spike Milligan I think, and a lot of people like that.And we did an album, a record, a vinyl record of old music hall songs with all my local friends from my local primary school. Although we were older by then, but we were all still connected because, oh my god, this is a long story. My mum is Sylvia Young and she ran a group before she had the Sylvia Young Theatre School called The Youngens, which started in my local primary school.Anyway, so The Youngens were still together and this is a vinyl record by The Youngens, old time music hall by The Youngens. And in fact, she told me, Wilton, so she would give them a framed copy of this vinyl many, many years ago. And I just spoke to her tonight, she's 85, and she just remembered she hadn't given it to them.I will do that.Well, it's a shame, because we could have played it, well, if she does, we'll play it on the stereo next time.I'll play it, yeah, we haven't. I have one at home, it's beautiful, it really is. So we'll get that to Wilton's.And she actually said to me, yes, we raised enough money for postage stamps. And I said, what do you mean, postage stamps? Was that just to send the records out?No, no, no, we raised money for Wilton's to send letters of appeal out, the postage stamps. In those days, that's how every doorway, you've got an appeal. Anyway, so that was back then.And here we are now. I think they had to do another appeal in 2009. I was a bit like, oh, oh.Well, it was threatened, yeah, it was threatened. And then I think they got one off money from the Arts Council to renovate, and which is what saved it. But it is an incredible history, this place.And I, yeah, a few years ago, I was doing some work with a vocal project here for kids again. And I turned one of Spike Milligan's poems into a song, which I must try and do actually at one of these shows. I've got another one, these shows in April, called Land of the Bumbly Boo, and it's got a musical style.I love that. Yeah, I'm a huge Spike Milligan fan. And yeah, the history of this place is absolutely amazing.And I didn't know until tonight when we were talking about it backstage that you had a direct history with this place.Yeah, definitely. We were, yeah, from a young age. What were we talking about?We were talking about the role of music in music.Oh, right. OK. So I guess I got, I came to storytelling from music hall.And then I was taken to lots of musicals. And I did love musicals growing up. But actually, really honestly, I wanted to be a pop star.I thought musicals weren't that cool. It's really annoying because now they're really cool. And I, I probably didn't realize I was doing something quite cool back then.But I was just like, I wasn't so grateful. I was very young. But now, now it's really cool to be in musicals.And I can't get a job.Well, we're going to come to the pop, the pop stuff in a bit because we have, we have, we have a pop thing coming up. But yeah, but before we do, speaking of music and theatre, so you're working on a new music theatre piece, right?Well, basically, I've got a play that I've written with Alan Cumming and Sally George. And it's happening next year. We haven't announced it yet, so I'm not allowed to announce it, but kind of announce it that it's happening.I can't even tell you what it's called. It's called I Can Die Too. I mean, that might change.And it's a play with music. And some argue it's a musical and some say it's a play with music. But me and Alan and Sally think it's a play with music.What's the distinction between those things?I think there's a distinction. The distinction is, and it should be, in a musical, the song tells a story and moves you along in the story. So at the beginning of the song, you should be somewhere else at the end of the song, I think.It's not always the case, but that's really traditionally how it works. And ours is more like a play and a concert together. So it's maybe a unique genre.So that's what's happening.Before we let you go, we're going to talk about one other thing, which is about your amazing career, which is that in the 90s, 1994, Frances was our Eurovision entry. She was our, yeah, that's right. And it's an amazing song, which we're going to, which by the way, spoiler alert, we're going to hear shortly for the first time in 30 years.30 years. It's going to happen tonight.I said to Steve, I can't sing it because I don't have a backing track. And actually I've been asked so many times by people to come and sing the song and they want to pay me loads of money. And I go, well, I haven't got a backing track.So now I've got, well, it needs a bit of work, I've got this backing track, doesn't it? I did my best. He did his best.Wow, okay, I thought they were just building up to a big compliment, but no, and I still haven't got a backing track, that's only good.It's not your fault.I did my best. Anyway, that's for a second, but I just want to talk to you about the experience of Eurovision. So firstly, how does it happen?How do you become the Eurovision entry?Well, back then, I just literally got asked by the BBC, would I do all of the songs, the eight songs for the Britons to choose. Britons? The Britons to choose.Which is weird actually, and I went for a meeting and I wasn't really sure I wanted to do it. Because first of all, I really needed to grow up. But back then, I didn't think the musicals were cool.I didn't think Eurovision was cool. I don't know why I wanted to be so cool. Anyway, and I really wasn't.And so I said no, I don't want to do it. And then they persuaded me with lots of nice things. I won't tell you about that.But you know, actually, I'll admit it. It was a job. I got paid.I got paid really well. I got a car space at the BBC. Got trips to Ireland. And yeah, it was, you know why, it was real fun. And actually, looking back on it, I would have done it for nothing if I'd known it would be so much fun. But it was a job.Where does the song come from? So they approached you with the song?No, they had a panel which I was on where you choose the best eight and then we do a TV program and I had to sing all eight, twice. And then the song that won was my favorite, actually.That's a great song.I was really relieved, yeah.Yeah, if you had been one who hated that, it would have been tricky.But they were really, really great songs, actually. I sang some really great songs. The eight songs were great.And what the experience itself, what's the, you know, what's the experience of, because it was in Dublin, right, that one? Yeah. What's the experience like of being in the room?And because, I mean, it's, you know, Eurovision, I think some people can be a little bit, in this country, can be a little bit snooty about, but it's a massive thing. It's a huge thing all over Europe.Yeah.And they take it really seriously. We sort of laugh at it here sometimes, but it's an amazing thing.It is serious, but it is fun. I mean, it's really camp. It's brilliantly camp.And it's got camper on camper every year. And I think, I mean, I'm now really proud of it. I'm really proud I did it.You should be. I think you did a fantastic job and you did quite well, right? I think a lot of people, there was a kind of controversial that you should have done much better, I think a lot of people were saying.They did think it, which was nice, because I was the bookie's favourite, but I came 10th, which apparently at that time was very good.And yeah, because people hate the Brits mainly, right? Yeah. And how did that feel on the night?Was the disappointment about that or were you just resigning?Yeah, I think when I first went into it, I wasn't expecting anything. But when the bookies said I was the favourite, is that how you say it? The favourite?I get it a bit confused. Yeah, so I suddenly got my high hopes up. And then so yeah, they were dashed.But it must have been quite sort of disappointing at the time. But I mean, like I said, an enormous, it's an enormous global audience, right?Yeah, yeah, yeah.Tens, hundreds of millions probably.Yeah.So it's quite a big gig.Yeah, I mean, you know, I suppose they were, in a way they were wise to get someone who's used to performing live all the time. So I wasn't nervous at all, not one bit.Oh really?Yeah, not at all.That's interesting.And I had the musical director. In those days, we didn't do it to a track. It was live orchestra.And the musical director had flown over. I'd worked with him before. We knew each other.You know, it was a lovely group. So we had a great time, didn't really think about the nerves, just got on with it. And the weird thing is I'm probably going to be more nervous singing this song now.Do you want me to ask you a difficult question or do you want to crack on and get it done?You can ask whatever.Well, I was just going to ask, we're running out of time, but I was going to ask the question that I asked Sarah Louise earlier, which is what's the point of music? In three words, if you like.Gosh, I didn't know you were going to ask that. But I mean, in three words, for me, music, because of doing storytelling in musicals as well as pop music, laughter, togetherness, and freedom.There we go. That was in three words. That's concise, beautiful.With that in mind, should we just do it?We're going to do it. If you know it, could you join in?Okay. Here we go. With my terrible backing track.He's amazing. Give it up for Steve Pretty.So my huge thanks once again to Frances Ruffelle for that fascinating chat and that lovely live music. Really really enjoyed having Frankie on the show and playing with her on stage again after many years of not playing together. So yeah, really appreciate her coming down for that and appreciate Wilton's Music Hall and all of my other guests on that episode.All of which will be coming up in the coming weeks and months. I know I mentioned it earlier but there really is a lot of exciting stuff to come on this podcast. I just kind of can't keep up with the amount of stuff that I'm recording.So I need to get away and slave away behind the scenes knocking it into shape and getting it out into your ears and eyes because it's a real treat some of this stuff we've got. So yeah, please stay tuned. The usual thing I ask you to do is to go over to the mailing list, so it's originofthepieces.com.Sign up for the mailing list. At the moment, it's just kind of a holding page, but I'm working very hard on getting this shiny new website finished, so that should be ready pretty soon, originofthepieces.com. And there's also links there to the Patreon, where you get loads of extra behind the scenes bonus stuff, which is really fun to download and watch and enjoy and listen to.And there's gonna be even more coming up on that as well. So do head over there. Meanwhile, again, we'll speak to you in the next few weeks.I hope, but do go back and check out previous episodes. Loads of good stuff there. If you haven't heard episode 25, where I dig into the origins of my track, Reawake, that I do with Hackney Colliery Band and the kind of unusual origin story of that, which was the fact that it was formed out of a near-death experience that I had a long time ago in 2004.So go back and have a listen to that and how I turned my daughter's heartbeat into a drum loop for that song. And speaking of turning recordings into songs, if you've got anything to send me for your contributions to the clip and mix, I should say, clip and mix where you can send me your recordings and then I'll have a little jam along with them or I'll turn them into a bit of music. Please do that.You can get in touch with podcast at stevepretty.com. That's podcast at stevepretty.com and you can send me a little video clip or a little audio clip or voice note or whatever you like and then I will see what I can do to do something musical with it and explain how I do so in the process. So podcast at stevepretty.com.Meanwhile, thanks again for tuning in and thank you to my incredible guest Frances Ruffelle. Thank you to Wilton's Music Hall and just reminds me to also thank Angelique Kidjo and Hackney Collery Band for the theme song. I'll be back in your ears and eyes as soon as I possibly can.Meanwhile, thanks very much. Stay musically curious and I'll speak soon. Bye.