05.11.2016
STRIPPED-BACK STAR AT HIS IMPISH BEST
The Guardian: 11th May 2016. Photo By Rob Ball
Costello is on playful form in a show that pays tribute to 60s light entertainment
“Welcome to my opening night at the London Palladium – I’ve been waiting to say that since I was seven years old,” smirks Elvis Costello on the first of his solo Detour tour’s four nights in the illustrious home of light entertainment. He’s certainly set out to make that seven-year-old’s Tarby-hosted dreams a reality. Dominated by “on air” signs and a 20ft 60s television set screening test-card photos from Costello’s Liverpool childhood, when he was known as Declan MacManus, the stage set reflects the experience of watching Sunday Night at the London Palladium in 1962 – Synecdoche, Bruce Forsyth, if you will – and from it Costello delivers the most revealing show of his career.