I have met lovely Kim Kallie and her husband Iain and daughter Sarah Page Banner twice in the past two weeks. Last week it was at The Grand Café & Beach, at a function to publicise the new show ‘Mom and Me‘ that will be performed by mother and daughter duo Judy Page and Kim Kallie from 10 – 12 May, to celebrate ‘all things grand’, Mother’s Day, and the special relationship between mothers and their daughters.
Judy Page is a well-known singer who has lived in Johannesburg for most of her life, a grande dame of theatre, who has had lead roles in the major Broadway and West End musicals. She told me that she has won three Naledi Theatre Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award recently. She loved performing with orchestra leader Gerry Bosman. She is a performance coach now for her agent, training up ‘seedlings’, she said.
Kim Kallie, using her mother’s maiden name as her stage name, was our country’s biggest recording artist in the mid-Eighties, and performed Madonna’s music under her second star name ‘Margino’, when Madonna prohibited her music from being played in our country. She had lead roles in ‘Evita’ and ‘Tell me on a Sunday‘, and achieved double gold, before moving to London for ten years. She and her family moved to Cape Town recently.
Judy Page and Kim Kallie will perform under the direction of Johan Laas, who will accompany them on piano. He was the Musical Director of ‘Idols’ for ten years. The programme includes classics such as ‘Moondance’, ‘Desperado‘, and ‘Feeling Good’, Lloyd Webber hits, as well as a musical journey around the world to ‘Amsterdam‘, ‘Spain’, ‘Paris in Springtime‘, and ‘Barcelona’. The show will include theatre too.
While we did not hear Judy and Kim perform, we did get a taste of Grand on the Beach Chef Greg
Beaverstock’s new winter menu, and received a printed copy of the menu for the show evenings. Chef Greg was previously at the Five Flies, and will be serving a three course meal, with starters of fish cakes, a winter salad, and carrot and red lentil soup; mains of braised beef ‘pot au feu‘ or line fish with a wild fennel and ginger
sauce; and a dessert of lime-chocolate tart with almond ice cream, which was one of our lunch dishes.
Having met both Judy Page and Kim Kallie, and given the calibre of their talent, ‘Mom and Me’ is sure to be a very special evening out with the girls and their moms. I enjoyed meeting Jane Lello, who handles the marketing for Grand Africa, the holding company for all the Grand properties in Cape Town and Plettenberg Bay.
Grand Café and Beach, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town. ‘Mom and Me’, 10, 11 and 12 May at 19h00. Tel 072 586 2052. www.grandafrica.com Twitter: @GrandAfrica Tickets www.webtickets.co.za R 450 includes Dinner and Show.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
An unusual recipe of 14 top South African chefs working together in pairs of two in less than ideal temporary kitchen conditions set up outside the City Hall, supported by a sommelier and restaurant serving staff per chef pair, and serving 36 guests a unique four-course menu each, dreamt up by Opulent Living publisher Barbara Lenhard, saw R1195000 raised for charity on Thursday evening, alongside which 
the brand new Mercedes-Benz S Class was launched.
