WHO ARE ALL THESE

AWFUL PEOPLE?

. . . is what Simon Blow hopes he will

not end up saying about the revived Cafe de Paris

THE CAFE de Paris has been brought to life again. This news stirred memories. My mother, in her debutante years and after, was a regular visitor. She sang songs from those days, and in particular I remember her breaking into, 'Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own. . . . '

She had her first romance at the Café de Paris, with a blue-eyed, blond-haired guardsman who is now, as a Belloc poem would have put it, a most important duke. In that far-off time it was the haunt of the landed aristocracy and international stars like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, and of course it had its share of cads and play- boys. But a cad was a cad with style then, and playboys like the late Ali Khan could not be called vulgar.

The revived Café de Paris has kept the basic decor as it was in the 1920s, but has added midnight-blue velvet wall-coverings, the inspiration for which, according to the publicity brochure, 'came from the operat- ic style and grandeur of the masked Vene- tian Un ballo in maschera'. Actually, Un ballo in maschera has nothing to do with Venice —Verdi set it in Stockholm — but no matter. The management claim that the nightclub can be brought back with all the panache of yesterday, and they are trying very hard to achieve this.

Let us begin with the guest list for the opening night. There are no grandees — I do not mean this snobbishly — and if the new owners want to recapture yesterday's mood, they must realise that grandees played a strong role. It's not as if Millenni- um Restaurants, who have bought the Café de Paris, are so naive as to believe that there are none around. There are plenty of heirs and heirlings who would willingly have lent their presence — after all, the first night was for free. But then the management say they do not want to reproduce yesterday as in a photograph. The titled class has been ignored, so who will be the Café's aristocracy?

The crème de la crème are considered to be Jerry Hall, Marie Helvin, Simon Le Bon, Harvey Goldsmith and Boy George — Elton John's presence was also promised. But, surely, some of these should have shown their talents on the boards rather than been welcomed as the new Café de Paris royalty?

I seriously ask if it is possible to bring back the spirit of the past. It was Proust who said that all true paradises are par- adises lost. Yes, there is a live house band — but to describe the old numbers as `user-friendly music', as a publicity woman put it, shows how far they have strayed. I wonder if Lorenz Hart would have liked his ballads described thus. Does it honestly fit with 'My Funny Valentine' or 'Ten Cents A Dance'? If a return to the past is to be made, then the past must be under- stood. Disco language will not work. Can a little subtle education be applied? Can it not simply be said that there will be Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Noel Coward — `Get a life.' and these songwriters be treated as eternal rather than retro apparitions?

In a 1950s biography of the old Café de Paris, with the splendid title Champagne and Chandeliers, we see the immense popu- larity of stars like Marlene Dietrich and Coward. Along with pre-war stars like Elis- abeth Welch, they made the place pay. Was taste in songs better then than now? Yes, for there are no songs today. Is there a chance that this well-intentioned revival might launch a new spate of similar artistes as yet unknown? We must pray it could be so.

The point is that the times really have changed. Sophistication is at a premium now, but during the inter-war years — the heyday of the old Café de Paris — there was always this essential ingredient for making entertainment work. There were also standards of behaviour and it was pos- sible to find amusement within them. The old Café de Paris never abandoned a uni- versal dress code: first it was evening dress, latterly a dinner jacket and black tie. The new Café de Paris intends to use its own judgment on individual grooming. Only those who please the management's idea of style will be admitted, apart, that is, from those who have bought 'Café de Paris Privilege Cards'. These are for private and corporate people who can pay the price it is assumed that these cardholders will know how to dress. The management informed me that already the new Cafe holds huge appeal for the 50-to-70-year-old age group, although it wants to attract a 25- to-40-year-old clientele. The older ones hold false dreams of a return to the past. The 'corporate' label bothers me. Will the Café drown in a wash of grey and blue suits? The best-dressed of today invent their own codes, and a request for 'imagi- native dressing-up' would ensure that the younger crowd could at least have fun with their apparel. It will be a pity if this revived nightclub ends up welcoming only the homogenised professional crowd. In the old, old days that word 'professional' was viewed unfavourably. It was not done to have a profession. So, to break the threat of convention, let the likes of punk dancer Michael Clark and the late Leigh Bowery be there.

The Café de Paris once boasted a fair range of character. It may not have been as bohemian as my great-uncle David Ten- nant's club, the Gargoyle, which was near- by in Dean Street, but there was latitude.

King Alphonso of Spain would bring a but- terfly net with him full of Spanish oranges which he gave out to the head waiter and anyone else he spoke to. Douglas Byng in alarming drag — frequently did the cabaret, writing lyrics which were always near the bone. Then there were the eccen- tric hunting crowd from the shires, and `period' rascals like Lionel Tennyson grandson of the poet — who was flush with cash one day and had nothing the next. `Where's my David Cox?' asked Lionel's father, noticing a blank space among his paintings. 'Oh, Mr Lionel's gone to Lon- don with it,' replied the butler. Lionel's racy memoirs — he was my step-grandfa- ther From Verse to Worse, deserve an immediate paperback reprint.

The cabaret stars were among the best that this century has seen. Can there be anyone now like Josephine Baker, in that banana-skin skirt with her chirrupy, sensu- al voice singing devastatingly different songs? Of course there can. But the man- agement's outlook has to remain flexible and liberal. It's all right to recapture the decor and certainly all right to serve excel- lent food, but the elite society world that was the Café de Paris has gone.

The majority of its clientele in the old days did not work and lived off private incomes. Our surviving aristocracy does not want to be seen splashing out in night- clubs any more; they are far too frightened of the dole queue, however exaggerated the reality of this is for them. If the new Café de Paris is to work, the essentials are panache and social fearlessness. A totally new clientele must be created. In these gender-troubled times there must be no stigma and no prejudice — there must be same-sex or mixed-race couples without disapproval. And to mirror today's altered, more fragmentary social scene, why not take a leaf from French music hall? I believe this is the moment for those chanteuses realistes to make a mark here. A restaurant/ cabaret club where the singers sing torch songs and boulevard ballads again could have appeal — certainly it would appeal to me. That is sophistication. And it is this sad but beautiful sophistica- tion that we now so badly need.

What we do not want is yet another commercial venture where there is a mish- mash of the past linked with the tiresomely fashionable. I do not want to see a host of super-models catwalking among breakfast television persons. If this club is to work, it must happen naturally on its own. The best places grow by word of mouth. Let us hope that there is still time for this to happen, in spite of the lavish selling of thousands of Privilege Cards. There may be a chance that among the £125-a-head personal cards some may set a style. I detest the idea of the corporate cards, for business folk have never performed well as style-setters.

There must be endless encouragement of the unusual and the unlikely, to create a fresh, untapped mood. It's no good hoping that the right kind of marriage might be made in the revived Café de Paris — as once occurred. And you won't meet any classy bounders — alas, that breed is extinct. But poets and thinkers still exist — just — and they should be welcomed. Let the new Café de Paris be a testing ground for the continuing vitali- ty of the nightclub, to see if the nightclub has a purpose any more. I would like to think so. If not, I'll continue humming `Blue Moon'.