Professor David Peimer
Édith Piaf (the ‘Little Sparrow’): Remarkable Life, Remarkable Singer
Summary
Professor David Peimer discusses the life and work of Édith Piaf (1915–1963), a French singer best known for performing songs in the cabaret and modern chanson genres. She is widely regarded as France’s greatest popular singer and one of the most celebrated performers of the 20th century.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
As far as I know, virtually nothing. Very, very little in those times. Got to remember, this is after the, after the first World War, going into the ‘20s. And, you know, I think she’s really been taught in the brothel, the grandmother and the prostitutes, and then she’s travelling as, for years with her father in, as a circus and street performer.
Just natural. She started singing with her father. She started singing in the brothel, actually, then with her father, briefly, and then just started singing on the streets, travelling with her father. Literally get a few bucks, coins thrown, you know, in a hat, a little box in the streets. That’s how she started singing.
Not as far as I know, I did look into that. I don’t think so.