ELVIS Costello needs a shave.
Sorry to focus on the man’s facial hair, but his feeble excuse for a beard was a huge distraction for me while watching a preview DVD of his new talk show, titled “Spectacle,” a reference (probably) to his glasses.
Elvis’ wan whiskers might not have drawn so much of my attention had I been more riveted by his interviews with Elton John, Lou Reed and Tony Bennett, each of them a guest on this 13-episode series ballyhooed by Sundance Channel as “an unprecedented event in television.”
OK – so there’s no precedent. That doesn’t mean the show is going to be any good, however. It’s like assuming a show titled “Spectacle” will, in fact, be a spectacle, or maybe even spectacular.
That does not happen to be the case here, unless you’re the type of person who thrills to the sound of music stars engaging in a contest of one-upmanship to see who can namedrop the most obscure singer/songwriters or long-dead R&B artists of the 1960s.
Elvis’ interview with Elton John (whose company produced this series) in the premiere episode stays mired in that decade.
From their conversation, we learn that Elton was enamored of Leon Russell’s piano-playing; that Leon played with Duane Eddy and Delaney & Bonnie; that Elton was once “petrified” by having to play “Danny Boy” in D flat (hey, who wouldn’t be!); and that Elton and Elvis both admired the music of David Ackles (if you have to ask who he is, or was, then you’re not cool enough to be watching the Sundance Channel in the first place).
At one point, for no apparent reason, Elton and Elvis duet on “Working in a Coal Mine” (by Lee Dorsey, in case you didn’t know that), and they end the episode performing an Ackles song called “Down River,” a number about as obscure as the man who wrote it.
And don’t hold out any hope that the series improves by the time it gets to Tony Bennett in episode five. God bless Tony, but if the man has any insights into the music he performs, he keeps them to himself. Instead, you get comments such as this one, about the drummer Buddy Rich: “He was the best drummer,” says Tony, “he was a great, great, great drummer.”
Great, great, great drummer, but a dull, dull, dull show.
“Spectacle: Elvis Costello with . . .” Tomorrow night at 9 on Sundance Channel