"I think my foster parents would be quite proud, actually. Because they gave me the opportunity to play the piano. So credits where credits due." [mpeg: 3.7MB]

Album reviews & comments

Starmaker signs up Jackie

This is Cheshire -- Friday 05 February 1999:

A TRANSSEXUAL, made famous by a popular BBC docusoap, has turned to a Warrington starmaker to help her career.

Jackie Mcauliffe, the enigmatic star of Paddington Green, has been signed up by Dave Warwick, of Knutsford Road, who plans to turn the 28-year old pianist and violinist into a celebrity.

"I think she has great potential as a celebrity. She is a very talented young lady who has musical, writing and poetry talents," said Mr Warwick.

"I'm shifting through projects for her at the moment. She did the Heaven and Earth programme last week. She will be appearing on The Kelly Show in Northern Ireland this weekend and Radio Two next week. She is a very busy lady and she is coping with the fame very well."

The successful entertainment agent has a stable of 26 high profile television stars including Carol Smillie, "Handy" Andy Kane and Gordon Burns.

Daily Telegraph

Wednesday, April 28, 1999 - Page 23

Jackie McAuliffe, a star of a recent prime-time BBC1 documentary soap Paddington Green has been signed, on the basis of her television exposure, as a major recording artist, by Decca label. In the soap she was a transexual prostitute who solicited custom at a major intersection to pay for the next stage of her surgical transformation. In the daytime, this person of indeterminate gender was seen shopping for music and relaxing at the piano.

At least the Telegraph staff knows the difference between a transsexual and a transvestite. However the writer must be really insecure in his or her own sexuality by failing to realise what gender Jackie's is. Let me give you a rule of thumb: If it looks like a girl, sounds like a girl and smell like a girl, it probably is a girl. (As I never have met her I cannot tell you what she feels or tastes like, but I'm pretty sure the punters would have complained if she hadn't qualified in that respect.)

Radio Times

June 05-11, 1999

Jackie McAuliffe is mildly amused and considerably puzzled that her appearances in the BBC1 docu-soap Paddington Green, set in west London, have generated their own harmless little urban myth. Word is that she has signed with a major record label to record an album of classical piano music. Everyone who mentions this is very sure about it, and even specifies the record company. "Someone else said that to me - it's not true. My agent put me in a studio to see what I could do, but that's about it."

I guess this was just a ruse to keep the lid on to maximise the surprise when the final episodes of series three were shown.

Lowering the tone

Guardian, Friday October 15, 1999

Monday's Gramophone Awards are the most important event in the classical calendar. But for how much longer? Adam Sweeting asks how serious music can survive in a world dominated by the likes of Charlotte Church.

[...] But at a moment when Decca Records can see fit to sign up Jackie McAuliffe, transvestite starlet of BBC1's risible docusoap Paddington Green, to make CDs of grade-two piano music, Jolly believes that Gramophone needs intellectual rigour and arduous selection criteria more than ever.

"I think Haymarket want to see classical music moved higher up people's wish list," raps Jolly bullishly. "They're not the slightest bit interested in going the Jackie McAuliffe route. There are other magazines that do that quite well. We occupy the high ground, and I think Haymarket are aware of the unique character of the magazine. The magazine will emerge in new plumage for the awards issue, but it's still very Gramophone. It looks more stylish and there'll be a lot more colour in it, but it's still the magazine for the committed, or indeed the wavering, classical consumer."

While it is certainly tempting just to ignore the ramblings of a writer too uneducated to know the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual, it can be fruitful to reflect on some of the areas where he has missed the point.

First of all, Forgotten Dreams is not a classical CD. It is a mix of baroque too-well-knowns, some 19th century romanticism, a couple of Rodgers & Hammerstein songs and even a jazz tune. It is not, and is neither meant to be the last word in interpretations of Bach. If the reviewer had bothered to read the listings he would have known it to be released in the 'easy listening' category.

Secondly, he completely fails to see that this is an amateur work (in the correct sense of the word - a labour of love and not as a profession). If one should expect the same standards of musical proficiency from a beginner as a conservatory graduate, I fear they would suffer serious recruitment problems. Nobody has ever held Bob Dylan's lacking harmonica skills against him being one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century.

Similarly, Jackie is a prime example and inspiration for many of us. Despite serious difficulties in life she is still able to produce a work of skill and beauty, in contrast to most of the viewing public. For someone studying music for ten years at the taxpayer's expense this is something to be expected, but this is not a skill one normally aquires on the streets on Paddington Green!

Thirdly, the buyers of the album are most likely to be fans of the series. While I would not be adverse to buying if for my mother if she had a CD player, the main reason for buying the album is that we love Jackie. There is not a single being on this planet I so dearly would like to see become a successful artist. As consumers we have the right to vote with our wallets. What do you prefer - Pavarotti earning another million and add another foot to his massive girth, or Jackie getting a proper home and a career so she would not have to go back to the streets? To me, Jackie's rendering of Clementi's Sonata #3 may not be the most musically proficient, but on a personal level no other recording fills me with more hope and emotion.