Dylan plays Wilton’s — and wins
Jakob Dylan, son of Bob, played a concert at Wilton’s Music Hall on Friday night and very good it was, too. His vocal and acoustic guitar set, with a three-man backing group, proved that the 38 year-old who used to have a group called the Wallflowers (whatever happened to them , I wonder; perhaps they joined in the party after all) is a fine artist in his own right.
His folk pop songs inevitably sound Bob Dylan-lite. And, boy, does he look like dad. Same face, dark glasses, pork pie hat, identical drawl and sliding articulation. But I guess he’s given up worrying about all that by now. He certainly seemed relaxed enough.
It must be terrible being the offspring of someone famous, especially if you go into the same line of business. In his cabaret days, Peter Cook used to beg our sympathies for his next guest, a young woman who had been through a lot, had experienced a difficult home life and was trying hard to emerge from under the huge dark cloud of her father’s reputation.
He urged us to put our hands together and give a very warm welcome to…Miss Stephanie Hitler.
Richard Olivier, son of Laurence, tried his hand at directing plays, sidetracked into Iron John-style man-management and hugging of trees, and now…who knows?
Marc Sinden, son of Donald, is a low-profile producer, mostly managing his dad’s one-man shows. Corin Redgrave, son of Michael, now a fairly old man himself, has only lately emerged as a fine actor in his own right, and has made it part of his business to play many of the roles played much better — he’d be the first to admit — by his own father.
The late Sheridan Morley was propelled into hyper-activity and an unquenchable need to prove himself, I’m convinced, by the fact of his own father Robert’s larger-than-lifeness, though Sherry never really came to terms with this in his book about his dad.
This is why Oedipus is so terrifying a play. The poor chap’s killed his father without knowing it, fulfilling on our behalf what we must all in some way do, prove ourselves to our fathers, or displace them, or steal their jobs, or kill them.
What’s so admirable about Jake Dylan is that he’s gone about his career of ursurpation with such quietness and modesty. And he’s probably managed it a bit better than have Julian Lennon, or those God-awful kids of Bob Geldof, or Charlie Sheen.
Poor old Prince Charles has the toughest gig of all, and no choice in the matter, either. I guess those of us whose parents had no expectation of us ever achieving anything are the luckiest of all. And yet that still doesn’t stop us from feeling we’ve let them down in some way. When you come to think of it, this parents and children business is a rotten one all round.
So hats off to Jake Dylan. And Lily Allen. And Toby Stephens — who ruefully remarked the other day that every single piece ever written about him lumbers him implicitly with unfavourable comparisons with his mum and dad, Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens.
Finty Williams, daughter of Judi Dench and the late Michael Williams, labours cheerfully with the handicap of her unasked for lineage, and has probably not received the recognition she might or might not deserve.
In another part of the forest, Hattie Morahan looks certain to achieve a lustrous career with no special reference to the talents or reputation of her parents, actress Anna Carteret and film and theatre director Christopher Morahan.
But, as Oedipus proves only too well, being a parent’s the easy bit. Being a child is murder.