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>> Petula Clark returns to Montreal to perform her greatest hits

by MATTHEW HAYS

Petula Clark looks utterly relaxed as she sits down in a swank Old Montreal resto to discuss her Saturday-night concert, one she's steeped in rehearsals for. "I did Sunset Boulevard for two years and before that I did Blood Brothers," she recounts, of her stage musical work on London's west end and on tour. "That's a lot of time playing someone else. I've wanted to do a show like this for a while, a sort of autobiographical show."

Clark, now 68, sporting blonde, curly locks and dressed casually, definitely has a massive oeuvre to draw from for this one-off show, which "could lead to a North American tour, if anything sparks," she says. A child star of Shirley Temple proportions in Britain in the '40s, she went on to become a major singing sensation in France (where she would fall in love with and marry Claude Wolff, who she remains with to this day), then emerge as an English-language pop sensation with such hits as "Downtown" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway." She then continued on with stage performing and extensive concert tours. She promises that Saturday's show will be a little bit of everything, with various songs picked from throughout her life, and will even include a poetry reading.

Targeting Montreal

Clark and hubby divide their time between their homes in London and Geneva and their offspring's homes in Paris and New York. So why Montreal for this one-time performance? "There are a lot of things I need to express in French and other things I must express in English," she says, saying Montreal's bicultural status makes it a choice launching point.

Clark, of course, is very closely associated with "Downtown," which has essentially become her trademark. But is it her favourite? "A song is a little like a love affair. Right now my favourite is a brand new one that no one's ever heard before. The music was written by a Swiss fan, and then I added the lyric. It's called 'I am Not Afraid,' I'll be performing it here and right now it's my favourite. But I suppose of all my '60s songs, 'Don't Sleep in the Subway' is my favourite."

Clark says she doesn't define herself by that famous work from more than three decades ago. "I've done interesting things before that and since," she says. But she is surprised by some of the reactions to it. Writing in Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, Karen Schoemer writes that Clark's hits from the '60s haven't dated so well. "She sounded so damn happy all the time," opines Schoemer. "Clark was cursed with a near-fatal dose of perkiness," she continues, going on to declare that "Downtown" was "the musical equivalent of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat in the air."

Never down and out

"Actually, it was very fashionable to be downbeat at that time," Clark says in response. "I perhaps wasn't so in with everyone else who was downbeat. Which I suppose gave the impression that I was this jolly little blonde lady. Which of course is not absolutely true. First of all, I'm a Scorpio. If you listen to the entire albums I was recording at the time, sure, the things they were playing on the radio were upbeat, but there's more interesting stuff on some of the other songs."

It remains somewhat mysterious to Clark, but she acknowledges it: she has a massive gay following. "With someone like Shirley Bassey, it's kind of obvious because she's sort of a caricature. Don't get me wrong, she's a great singer and a friend of mine, but I can see the over-the-topness about it. But I don't think I'm over the top. Maybe I'm reassuring.

"I'm going to perform Sondheim's "I Never Do Anything Twice" on Saturday. It's quite rude, full of double meanings. The first time I did it in public was for an AIDS benefit in San Francisco. It was for a gay crowd and they absolutely loved it. I enjoyed that so much. They got absolutely everything. That's what I love about a gay audience--they're so hip, they know exactly what you're getting at. We'd be lost without them in this business."

Petula Clark plays Théâtre St-Denis one night only, Saturday, Oct. 28, 8pm, $47-65; 790-1111