Stalwart Petula’s still going strong

5:32pm Wednesday 25th April 2007

She's one of Britain's most successful performers, with a 60-year career in music, film and theatre - and she's in Bradford this week.

She is, of course, Petula Clark. She may be 74, but that won't stop her belting out highlights from her musical career, including Downtown and I Couldn't Live Without Your Love.

She sings in five languages, has topped the charts in the UK and America, appeared in more than 30 movies and starred in hit shows like Blood Brothers and Sunset Boulevard.

Petula was a child star, entertaining the troops during the Second World War. By the age of nine she had performed in more than 200 shows and was known as the British Shirley Temple.

"I missed a lot of school but it didn't seem to matter," she says. "All children who grew up during the war had a disruptive childhood, particularly in the cities. You just got on with it.

"I always loved singing and entertaining, I'm an uneducated musician, totally self-taught. There was no stage school for me. I had a lot of experience from a young age and it led to nice things for me."

She cut her first record, Music, Music, Music, at the age of 17 but it wasn't until the 1960s, when she was in her 30s, that her recording career took off.

Downtown won her a Grammy and was followed by a string of hit singles both sides of the Atlantic.

"The Beatles opened the doors in America for artists like me but I didn't set out to crack America, I don't think you can do that," she says.

"I just did a record that did well over there. There was something about Downtown that caught the American imagination."

Petula started recording in French after going down a storm at the Olympia theatre in France. She married French record producer Claude Wolff in 1961 and has divided her life between Britain and France ever since.

Her movies include Finian's Rainbow and Goodbye Mr Chips and in theatre she has starred in The Sound of Music, Blood Brothers and Sunset Boulevard.

"In my concerts I sing songs from the shows I've been in and in my mind I'm back there, I'm Norma Desmond or Mrs Johnson. I'm acting as well as singing," she says. "These are great songs and they tell a story."

Petula Clark is at St George's Hall on Friday. For tickets ring (01274) 432000.

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