"All My Love feat. Dick Van Dyke"

8 December 2024

7 mins 18s

All My Love feat. Dick Van Dyke

All being well, Dick Van Dyck will enjoy his 99th birthday later this week. Best known in America for the eponymous Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), and best known in the UK for Mary Poppins (1964) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), the avuncular star is one of the entertainment business's most cherished performers.

It's astonishing enough that he is still alive, never mind that he's capable of holding his own in front of the camera. All the more so, when you consider he has triumphed over alcoholism and was a heavy smoker for most of his adult life! His life force is to be envied.

In the capable hands of directors Spike Jones and Mary Wigmore, Van Dyck's star shines brightly here, and Coldplay front man Chris Martin proves to be a quite wonderful accomplice. The singer-songwriter is gloriously free of deference… when the veteran star accompanies him in song, before asking if his rendition is in the right ballpark, Martin replies with a charming smile that he is "in the right city", which is a beautiful way of saying 'no'.

Van Dynck still has fantastic instincts and an abundance of charm, and it looks as though the assignment here was to let him do his thing, or whatever thing he cared to try with as little interference as possible. It works... and DAVID suspect that this is a piece of work that will ride high in the memories of everyone who made it, and many who watch it.

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