Sabrina Carpenter has had a very good run recently. Her aviation-themed performance of ‘Manchild’ at the Grammys was a delight: has anyone been on stage with so much luggage flying around in the background? But it was the week’s second outing for the hit that has really warmed Rakewell’s heart. In a 50th-anniversary special of The Muppet Show, Carpenter played a no-nonsense waitress in a bar, who dealt with rowdy customers by literally tossing them out, without missing a beat of ‘Manchild’ as she did so.
Appearing on The Muppet Show is a real test of a star’s mettle. There is no bigger challenge for a performer, in the view of your roving correspondent, than sharing a screen with one of the world’s greatest divas: Miss Piggy. Among those who have risen to the occasion are Rudolf Nureyev performing Swine Lake and Kris Kristofferson singing ‘Help me make it through the night’ – while looking as if he might not make it to the end of the number for laughing. Carpenter, to her infinite credit, looked genuinely chuffed in her scenes with the porcine superstar and the running joke about her having stolen Miss Piggy’s showgirl stylings reflected well on both of them.
Much has been written about what make Miss Piggy so marvellous. For Rakewell, it is her willingness to be vulnerable while displaying utter self-belief. As she writes in Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life (1981) – easily the best self-help book ever written – ‘Beauty is being yourself […] only you can ever fully appreciate your true beauty. Others may try, but they so often fall short.’ It’s no wonder that stars who are equally comfortable with themselves are the ones who really seem to click with her.
Rakewell has only one minor complaint about her career. Miss Piggy is, of course, a keen art collector – for full details, see Miss Piggy’s Treasury of Art Masterpieces from the Kermitage Collection (1984). (The book presents the paintings and sculptures she has amassed with the help of B. Bernard ‘Bernie’ Bernhardt Bernier Bernardi, an art dealer ‘so renowned that he is wanted in over seven countries’.) She has also been photographed by the likes of Norman Parkinson and Irvine Penn. But The Muppet Show has been strangely lacking in appearances by visual artists. Keith Haring, for one, might have had a whale of a time. Of artists working today, surely Marina Abramović is brave enough? Andy Warhol once received a box of Muppet memorabilia for his birthday – a gift from his friend, the designer Halston. We can only regret that an artist who knew a superstar when he saw one didn’t get the call.