3 October, 2025

Jackie Clarke takes on five singing legends

Jackie Clarke is relishing the challenge of tackling a series of vignettes of famous singers interacting with everyday women in her next show, Songs for Nobodies.
The “play with songs” opens at the PumpHouse in Takapuna next week, with singer Clarke (pictured) – fresh from a national tour with musical Chicago – taking on all 10 characters. She will range through Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, Judy Garland and Maria Callas, and also act as five women whose lives briefly cross the singers’ paths. “They’re ordinary woman who have a chance encounter with a star,” she explains.
One of the vignettes is of a powder room attendant in New York who notices that Garland’s hem is unravelling and offers to fix it. The two get talking. “For the first time in her life she feels really seen.”At the end of the acted out interchange, Clarke transforms into Garland for a poignant song.
“I’m exhausted at the end of each day, it’s such a big challenge,” she tells the Observer in a rehearsal break. She isn’t impersonating the singers, but instead trying to capture their essence in her own voice. “I have an aspect of them in my voice, but I don’t sound like any of them.”
She enjoys winding up the show as Maria Callas. “She sang from a really emotional place.”
Clarke came across the play by Joanna Murray-Smith around 20 years ago, a few years after it was commissioned by the Melbourne Theatre Company. She didn’t feel ready for it at the time, but the 59-year-old says maturity and confidence have made her bolder. She credits production company Tadpole in helping her with this, saying its casting of her in Shirley Valentine around five years ago was pivotal in encouraging further acting roles. In discussions over Songs for Nobodies, the show seemed an ideal vehicle for her mix of talents.
Having friend Penny Dodd accompanying on piano is another bonus, as is performing again at the PumpHouse, where her choir, Jubilation, also turns out annually. “It’s the perfect size and vibe for these smaller shows,” she says.
Clarke aims to have fun with her work, and for the audience to equally enjoy the ride.
“I’ve got to the age where I don’t say no to myself anymore. I’m not after perfection, I’m after losing myself in the song – that’s what those great singers do, they completely surrender themselves to the song.”
• Songs for Nobodies, at the PumpHouse, 9-19 October, excluding Mondays and including some matinees. Adults $49, seniors $39, group concessions available. Book at pumphouse.co.nz or Ph (09) 489-8360.

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