SINGING POODLE IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28160, 26 December 1956, Page 2

SINGING POODLE IN BRITAIN

Bing To Appear On Television (By SUSAN VAUGHAN) When they told me the other day that a singing poodle was soon to appear on 8.8. C. television, my reaction was sceptical to say the least. At the very best, I thought, the “singing” would be just-a “woof-woof” here and a “woof-woof’ there. But I was wrong. No “woof-woofs.” And the dog actually sings—after a fashion. The poodle and his owner. Miss Doreen Lavender, have been giving me a private demonstration at their London home. The result was convincing, if not altogether pleasing to the ear. Miss Lavender, a soprano, ran up and down the scales in the music lesson from “Bitter Sweet” and, after a faulty start, the dog caught up and wailed in sympathy if not quite in harmony. Will it be all right on the night? I asked. What if he gets a sore throat? Miss Lavender remained sweetly unperturbed. “Well, he’s been all right on the stage before glaring lights and thousands of faces, so he shouldn't be worried by a television camera. As for a sore throat, I am careful not to let him sing- too much now.” What kind of singer is her dog? She describes him as a coloratura, with great strength in the upper range and sweetness in his middle register. “He enjoys his singing immensely, but always settles down for rest after each number.” The singing dog, a brown seven-year-old poodle, was given as a puppy to Miss Lavender for her twenty-first birthday and made his stage debut last summer, when his owner was appearing at Felixstowe. He accidentally got in to the wings one night and his singing was so tuneful that Miss Lavender took him into her act. The “duetists” were an immediate success. The audience threw them bones and biscuits. Doreen Lavender takes her poodle everywhere she goes, except the cinema. He accompanied her on tour in the “Folies Bergere” and stayed in her dressing-room every night when she played “Red Riding Hood” at the Bristol Hippodrome four years ago. She believes all this intimacy with the theatre made him stagestruck. The poodle and Miss Lavender sang recently in the Norman Evans television show. The dog’s name? Bing.