Frank Sinatra tribute heads to Venue Cymru

Aug 12 2010 By Mari Jones

FRANK Sinatra’s youngest daughter rushed backstage to meet the man who she regards as the world’s finest performer of her father’s songs.

Such heady meetings have become the norm for former timeshare salesman Stephen Triffitt.

Performing as arguably the world’s greatest ever entertainer takes a certain amount of what the great man himself might say, chutzpah, but Triffitt seems to take it all in his stride.

He wins rave reviews wherever he performs and immediately won over the hard-bitten American press, with many critics saying the Brit nailed Sinatra’s perfect phrasing.

Triffitt will be performing at Venue Cymru later this month with a full size 17-piece big band orchestra.

He looks the part on stage and even if his physique is a little bigger than Sinatra’s, he wears similar custom made suits and even on occasions a trilby.

"I look like Frank in his later years, when he got a bit bigger," joked Triffitt.

"I’ll drink a little whisky on stage but I can’t stand bourbon, Sinatra’s favourite tipple.

"In Llandudno I’ll also be chatting to the audience a bit, so I get to be myself too."

Triffitt’s career started after a drunken night out in Tenerife where he was doing a stint selling timeshare.

"They all told me I sounded like Sinatra, so I decided to apply to go on ITV’s Stars in Their Eyes, and I became the runner- up to Freddie Mercury!"

This led to playing Sinatra on stage. OK magazine happened to be there, and as fate had it an American producer happened to spot him in the magazine.

Triffitt explains: "I nipped out of my brother’s wedding reception to meet the producer, he had been searching for a Sinatra performer for five years."

Weeks later Triffitt found himself singing to a roomful of American critics in Atlantic City.

"I was actually performing with many of Sinatra’s original band members, so it was a pretty scary experience," he remembers.

"I picked up bits and pieces from band members who told me some great stories.

"Apparently he’d have three groups of people in the bar after a performance.

"He’d be chatting to all the guys who’d played well, he’d talk over to the second table, but there was a dark table in the corner with all the guys who had played badly who he ignored."

As for Tina Sinatra’s encounter with Triffitt, he laughs and says: "She came up to me after a performance in LA and said ‘hello, I’m your daughter’.

"Throughout the conversation she talked to me as if I was her dad, she was great."

At Venue Cymru, on August 21, Triffitt will be performing songs from the album Sinatra Live At The Sands, singing such classics as Luck Be a Lady, Fly Me To The Moon and Shadow of Your Smile.

Tickets cost between £18-£20. Show starts at 7.30pm. Box office 01492 872000.