Singing: Your Very Good Health

VU at The Swan Theatre, Worcester, June 2011

Just over three years ago, after watching the BBC’s “Last Choir Standing”, I called a friend and said I fancied putting a contemporary choir together. She was to handle the admin side, I’d be the music monkey. We started small – 30 people playing small gigs to friends and family while I taught them basic technique and we found out what kind of animal this particular group wanted to be. It was fun, and it was OK, but it wasn’t great. At least, not from where I was standing. What I didn’t realise – until they started telling me – was that the experience was changing their lives.

I’ve just come back from a rehearsal for a show which is going on this Saturday (28th Oct), and which is our 6th and biggest sellout concert of the year. The first five were in theatres (actually, four were in theatres, two with the fab Steve Maitland, two on our own, the fifth in The Theatre From Hell – see previous blog!), and this one’s in the glorious surroundings of Worcester Cathedral. The unsure 30-strong ragtag bunch has now become a proud, hard working machine comprising 120-odd singers, each of whom spends hours each week learning the material that I relentlessly throw at them, and turning up regular as clockwork to the Tuesday night rehearsals, where they work on styling, phrasing, dynamics, movement and real singing. The VU Sound (Voices Unlimited) has become an integral and deeply important part of many of their lives, and they’ll do just about anything to rock up at rehearsal and join in. We’ve had people in with slipped discs, people about to have major surgery, people who’ve just had surgery and are still recovering from the anaesthetic (!), people whose personal lives are falling apart, people who have suffered bereavements, accidents, injuries of all kinds – and yet they turn up, and they sing. Why?

Singing, y’see… singing is an odd thing, in the sense that it’s an activity that adds up to far more than the sum of its parts. Most of us are aware that the act of singing releases ‘happy chemicals’ into the body, that it’s good for the respiratory system, that it’s a feelgood activity even when you’re just singing alone – but when you factor in a bunch of other people all working towards the same goal, factor in the harmonies (is there anything better on earth than the sound of well-sung harmonies? I’m not sure there is), the laughs, the social life, the new friendships, the feeling of achievement when you’ve worked yourself half to death on a show (or just a single song) and your demon of a musical director pronounces it fit for public consumption – then it becomes something far more than just stringing notes and words together.

Ask almost any individual member of The VU Sound if they’re accomplished singers and for the most part, they’ll tell you ‘no’. But ask them how great a sound they make as an ensemble and they’ll talk your ear off about what a genuinely awesome noise it is. Now, I’m a complete music snob. I’ve been in the pro music and theatre industries my whole life, and I’m all for giving the jobs to the highly-trained people who deserve them, but that doesn’t mean that amateur singers can’t create a pro-standard sound if they’re given the opportunity and led the right way. VU has changed my mind about one of my long held beliefs (never work with animals, children or amateurs), mainly because in working with this great group over the last three years, they’ve shown more commitment to the process than I could ever have wished for or expected, and because they keep telling me how much it has transformed them as people. Did I do that? No, the process did – I just facilitated it – but I’m very glad to call myself their MD.

As for the show, I have the great privilege of singing alongside three superb pro lead vocalists (Alex Weatherhill, Mark Pincher, Dean Bayliss) from the world of musical theatre, whilst standing in front of a group of singers – I won’t use the word ‘choir’, they’re not a choir – who would be able to hold their own pretty much anywhere. Bring on Saturday, and thanks, VU – you’re amazing.

Gigging in the Theatre from Hell

I’m a lucky sort. I’ve gigged in theatres up and down the country, in the West End, overseas and probably in outer space at some point. On my travels I’ve met wonderful people, talented people, brilliant techies, stunning musos and friendly, helpful theatre staff. I’ve also met the odd lairy so-and-so and a few giant egos but you get that in all walks of life.

A couple of weeks ago, a whole new experience was thrust upon me, two other lead vocalists and the 80-odd members of The VU Sound who had rocked up to sing that day. VU are very fortunate, and often sell out the venues that they perform at – a minor miracle these days, and especially when there are no ‘celebrity’ turns fronting the show. We’d sold out the (small, regional) theatre on this occasion too, and whilst we really weren’t expecting rose petals to be strewn at our feet as we arrived, we weren’t expecting the treatment that we got!

For reasons that will probably never come to light, the theatre staff had decided, even before we arrived, that they didn’t want us there. Not that they knew us, you understand, they just………. didn’t want us there. So far, so bizarre. There were too many of us, apparently. The stage was going to collapse. (The stage wasn’t going to collapse, as it was reinforced with concrete, or so we’d been told by the management)! We’d never get out of the building if there was a fire.

So they made us do a fire drill. We had to get out of the building in less than three minutes. We did in under two, so they made us do it again.

The bolshie (by which I mean aggressive, confrontational, unco-operative and just plain in-yer-face RUDE!) attitude continued throughout the tech rehearsal. The VU folks were impeccably behaved, as they always are. That’s a well-oiled machine, right there! They let the abuse wash over them with a patient smile on their faces and refused to bite back – which is quite clearly what the arrogant, unpleasant sods dishing it out were wanting. I, meanwhile, had taken the decision that the nastier they got, the nicer I was going to be. It drove them MAD. Ha! Naturally, what I wanted to do was take their heads off at the knees and tell ‘em to shove their theatre where the sun don’t shine but that wouldn’t have achieved anything.

During the afternoon, we endured mics that ‘mysteriously’ couldn’t be patched to the foldback, deafening sound onstage but sod all coming out front – for 3 hours. We later found, via a techie from inside the ranks, that the theatre’s tech team had ‘accidentally’ wired everything wrong, just the night before, and it was never going to work. Funny, but when our guy put all the jacks back in the right places, everything suddenly worked a treat. I wonder how THAT could have happened? We’d also taken in three top-of-the-range, brand new radio mics. They couldn’t get them to ‘work’ thanks to the giant mystery of the sound-desk goblins, so at one point they handed me a dinky-toy of a plastic, I-wouldn’t-do-karaoke-with-it mic that my big gob would have blown up as soon as look at it. I politely but firmly declined to use it even though – miracle of miracles! – it was the only mic that they could get routed to the wedges. Sure it was.

At one point the SM came and bellowed at me (out of the blue) that ‘none of these people had better leave the building during the interval or I’ll want to know why!’ I said that wouldn’t be happening on my watch, and that if in some parallel universe it DID happen, I’d kill them first, then hand them over to him to kill them again, and did we understand each other? Smile, turn, walk away, muttering unpleasantries.

He came back later – reasonable tone of voice this time – to tell me that because it was a sell-out and a hot day, they were going to have the interval last 30 minutes instead of the usual 20, to ensure that everyone got served. Sounded reasonable to me, I thanked him and got on with day. More on that in a bit…..

Suffice it to say that they didn’t find a good reason to justify pulling the show, which for whatever reason was what they were trying to do, and having ‘miraculously’ found a way to make the sound work perfectly ten minutes before the half, we set about turning it around and getting ready to go on. I had thought that once the show was up, that would be the end of their unutterable fannying around. I was wrong.

Together with the other two principals, I was on and off stage throughout the show, and had six changes to do. I’d done my first number and went up to the dressing room (three miles from the stage) to change for my next number, which was about ten minutes later. My buddy Givvi Flynn, who was singing that day too, was also in the dressing room changing for her next number, which came directly after mine. We neither of us know why, but we decided to go down to the stage a whole song earlier than usual. I guess the day had been so difficult that we just wanted to keep an eye. Down the stairs from the dressing room we went, to be met with a closed door, preventing us from getting to the stage. The ONLY door to the stage, from where we were. And it wasn’t just shut, it was locked – bolted from the other side!

Yes, our friend the SM had BOLTED US dressing room side, and if I didn’t get to the stage within the next three minutes, I was going to miss my cue for a great big diva ballad during which VU sing nothing for a goodly 2 minutes. The show was going to come to a stop if I didn’t get to the stage – disaster. At this point, we didn’t know that the door had been locked deliberately, and were just focused on trying to get to the stage. Long story short, we found a way out of the building, where we’re now trollying around, radio mics in hand, four inch heels on feet, trying to find the quickest way back into the building and get to the stage. Front door and stage door are round the other side of the building – we’re not going to make it on time. Givvi hammered on the nearest fire door and by some chance the other lead vocalist came wandering by and let us in, looking somewhat confused! I made it to the stage with one beat to go.

The Act 1 finale was Livin’ On A Prayer, and VU assistant MD Stuart Lee does his rock-god guitar-hero thing throughout. Or he would have done, if the DI box on stage hadn’t been ‘mysteriously’ tampered with after the tech. He strides out, strikes a pose, hits a chord and………. nothing! He sorted it by calmly plugging into another amp and getting on with it like the pro he is, but tempers were fraying by this point!

And so the interval arrives. 30 minutes, as he said. We got our Act 2 beginners call, went to the stage yada yada yada. Audience was WAY noisy – much more so than usual. We found out later that ‘our friend’ had called the audience back in after 20 minutes, and made them wait in the frying heat for ten minutes before calling us.

Sadly for the demented little man, that didn’t work either and the crowd went nuts for the opening of Act 2, just like they usually do. ‘Hmm’, thinks our neanderthal friend, ‘this just isn’t working. I’ve tried everything I can to sabotage this show and the audience still loves them. What to do? What to do?’ Well, we later found out that what he did was to turn off all of the fans in the auditorium so it became – quite literally – a sauna. We knew we were dissolving on stage, but put it down to the amount of jumping around that we do. Our Friend had resorted to trying to get the audience to get up and leave because it was so unbearably hot. They didn’t. Not a soul.

His final shot at us was to refuse to open the tabs for a second bow (which would have been normal, given that the crowd was giving us a screaming, cheering, standing ovation). But no. He declared ‘Oh I’ve had enough of this’ and made his exit. If I’d known, I might’ve had him pursued by a bear.

Oh, what happened? Well, we wrote an icily-polite but deadly letter of complaint. Naturally, nothing was done.

VU at The Swan (a GREAT theatre to work in!) June 24th 2011, with Dan Reeve & his team at the helm - thanks guys!

Happily, we usually work with superb tech teams who realise that their job is to make the show look and sound as good as possible. In return, they get a well-oiled machine and co-operative people who understand how to behave in a theatre, never display any attitude or ego, and just get on with the job that they’re there to do. In fact, just a couple of weeks earlier, we’d had the great pleasure of working with Dan Reeve and his superb team from the CPS Group. They’re the boys who go out with the fabulous Three Phantoms show, starring John Owen Jones, Earl Carpenter, Matthew Cammelle and Rebecca Caine.(If you’ve not seen it, go! They’re touring again this Autumn – it’s a superb show with a 21-piece orchestra and some of the best vocalists in the business). OK, we were spoiled by them – they’re just wonderful to work with – but really, does any turn going into a theatre deserve the alternative of being terrorised by a jumped-up little Hitler masquerading as a stage manager? I think not……..

As for The Theatre From Hell – we’ll never go there again. Suggest you don’t, either, if you value your sanity!

Workaholics Anonymous

I have been a workaholic for twenty years. I have a reputation for being a demon worker, and a ‘go-to’ person for when you need something doing. I have also learned to revel in that, and to enjoy the fact that others think well of me because I work so hard.

All that is about to change. But I’ll come back to that….

Was I born a workaholic? No, of course not. What made me into one? Running away from the stresses of an appalling relationship. (If I buried myself in my work, I wouldn’t have to think about the other stuff, right? No, completely wrong! ‘The other stuff’ stays in your subconscious anyway, and comes back later to bite yer bum)! The problem is, the relationship – or whatever is your trigger – goes away, but the workaholic tendencies remain. The urge to over-work is powerful,  incredibly destructive and ruins your work-life balance. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

I spent ten full years in higher education, largely whilst working full time as a performer and teacher. This, I considered perfectly normal. It isn’t. It’s ridiculous. What was I trying to prove? Who was I trying to impress? I don’t know. I’m glad I studied hard and got the bits of paper but I (quite literally!) nearly died in the process, too busy, too stressed to see that I was becoming more and more unwell. I survived by the skin of my teeth but was, and am, left with M.E. for my pains. And guess what now triggers a relapse into M.E.-world? Stress and overwork! Big surprise. But did I stop? No.

My road to recovery started recently, when I finally recovered from a period of horrible illness that hit me last Autumn. (Oh, what triggered that? You guessed…. I was overworking. 7 days a week, 100 hours per week, every week, for seven full months. OF COURSE I became ill)! I have begun – finally, finally – to realise that I don’t need to work those stupid hours in order to have a fulfilled life. In fact, I need NOT to work those stupid hours, in order to have a fulfilled life! So I’ve started saying no, a lot. I’ve stopped working every weekend, every Bank Holiday, most evenings. Instead, I’m doing terribly silly things like seeing my friends, getting out for walks in the sunshine, reading books… you know…. ENJOYING myself!

The interesting thing is that this doesn’t seem to impact on my productivity at all. I spend my days running VIDLA (the online college for singers and singing teachers – a full time job if ever there was one!), teaching private students (strictly limited to 12 per week) and arranging / rehearsing / gigging Voices Unlimited, my 120-piece kick-ass contemporary choir. I’m doing all of those things much better, because I’m calmer. Yes, I still get stressed occasionally (who doesn’t?) but it’s not now an all-day-every-day theme. I am learning that my work – which I have always enjoyed – is even more enjoyable if it’s balanced with an equal amount of play. I wish I had worked this out years ago, but I have a lot of years of my life left, potentially. I intend to spend the next twenty years (and hopefully the twenty after that!) being a recovered workaholic. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got stuff to do

Smokin’ Idea for Singers!

I had lunch with an old friend in the week, and was interested to see him smoking what looked like a cigarette but clearly wasn’t, as I witnessed him dropping liquid into the end of it via a dropper at one point! My friend has been a smoker – and a singer – for as long as I can remember, so I had to ask him what it was that he was using.

It turned out to be an electronic cigarette, using liquid nicotine. Apparently it comes in a variety of flavours. Ho hum, I thought, so it’s not going to cure you of your nicotine addiction then. We had a conversation about it, and it turns out that, even though it doesn’t cure anyone of their addiction to nicotine, it does allow for a sustained and fairly straightforward reduction in the nicotine strength, and more importantly it means that a smoker is getting just the thing that he or she is addicted to – nicotine – but not the rest of the appalling rubbish that goes into cigarettes. What appalling rubbish, do you ask? Well, according to www.stopsmoking.org.uk, the following:

Hydrogen Cyanide – a highly poisonous gas used in execution chambers

Carbon monoxide – a poisonous gas found in car exhaust fumes

Formaldehyde – used as disinfectant and embalming fluid

Benzene –a toxic petrol additive and industrial solvent

Methanol – a poisonous alcohol used in anti-freeze

Polonium – highly radioactive and toxic element

Ammonia – a strong alkali used as a refrigerant

Acetone – a solvent used in nail-polish remover

Nicotine – a nerve poison used in insecticide

Radon – a carcinogenic radioactive gas

Butane – a flammable gas used as fuel

Toluene – an industrial solvent

Arsenic – a common poison

Tar – used in road surfacing

DD – a banned pesticide

Clearly, they want to make a point and so are using somewhat inflammatory (I’m here all week, folks!) language, but nonetheless, putting anything on this list into your lungs doesn’t sound like the best idea anyone ever had.

Let’s be clear – I don’t much care for smoking, personally, and have never done it myself. I certainly don’t think it’s something that singers should be doing, if they’re serious about their craft! However, if you’ve really got to, this might be an idea worth exploring. At the very least, you’ll get the nicotine hit, but without that bothersome cyanide………

I don’t endorse smoking on any level. However, I live in the real world and know that whether I like it or not, people still do it. Since starting to use these e-cigarette gizmos, my friend has gained better overall health, plus half an octave of range in his already-impressive voice, with greater clarity of notes, especially at the top end. That’s got to be better than restricted range and continuing to fill your lungs with the obscenities on that list above, right?  You can get more information about electronic cigarettes here. (My friend has researched and tried many – some of them claim to be much more than they are – and says that these are the best quality, in his opinion).

http://www.totallywicked-eliquid.co.uk/

Why old friends are the best

I went to stay with one of my oldest friends and his partner this weekend. Said friend is the mega-talented Alex Weatherhill (singer, actor, musical director, arranger, vocal coach) with whom I have shared many an adventure on stages across the known universe, and many a vodka. We were instructed in the grand art of vodka drinking by some masters – a Russian band that we had the unmatched privilege of singing with once upon a (it was ten years ago my god where did the time go?) time.

Alex and his equally gorgeous other half live in the middle of the countryside,  not far from Scarborough, in a beautiful cottage, with their beautiful cat. It sounds idyllic and within 24 hours it felt idyllic too! I’ve wanted to live in the country for many years now, so it was a chance to experience it first hand. I was only due to be there Sat – Mon, but a dark, rainy, unlit encounter with a pothole the size of a giant’s angry footprint left me down one tyre and one alloy wheel. (This is traditional: I get a new car, and within two months, something has to go wrong). Thus it was that I ended up staying for nearly a week.

What I found was that, alongside the relaxed lunches with Alex, and home-cooked dinners late in the evening, my work productivity went up whilst my stress levels went down. There’s definitely something to this country-living malarkey, and my gracious hosts confirmed that everyone says the same thing.

The whole experience – despite leaving me very light of pocket, thanks to the Pothole of Doom – served to remind me what I really want in life: a calmer, simpler existence. People think I’m one thing, but mostly,  I’m the other!

The other thing which hit home with some force is the value of one’s old friends. I KNOW hundreds of people by name, and have lots of friends, some just casual acquaintances, some more than that, but only a few who fall under the category of ‘old friends’, by which I mean not just ‘people whom I have known for a lot of years’ but rather ‘people who are my chosen family’. Another old friend, the very talented Givvi Flynn (rock vocalist, vocal coach, graphic artist) describes her closest friends as ‘the family that I chose’. She’s right, I think. Just knowing someone for a long time isn’t enough – there have to be countless shared, important experiences, and even more everyday experiences, before you enter into that ‘old friend’ territory.

I live a privileged life, in the sense that I do what I love, and people seem to want to pay me for it. I am very grateful for that (and have worked very hard for the privilege!), but this week I have been reminded that the simpler things are actually bigger, and more important. Here’s to old friends.

 

 

Goodbye, 2010 – don’t hurry back!

Well here we are, Christmas Eve 2010. I haven’t blogged for a while (apologies) so I thought this might be the time to have a look back at 2010 in all its….erm………glory.

I don’t know about you but I will be more than pleased to see the back of this year, as it’s not been a pretty one. I knew we were in for trouble when I was reading the 2010 predictions from various astrologers, including Jonathan Cainer who is usually really upbeat, positive and glass-half-full. So when Mr. Cainer starts telling you to buckle up ’cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride, you know you’re in for interesting times…….

I’m not the only one who’s had a rough year – it seems that almost everyone I know has had to deal with some fairly major tricksy-ness one way or another. Apparently it’s something to do with a Cardinal T-Square – a rare astrological event that essentially translates as ‘be prepared for everything in your life to change, and suck it up because it’ll all eventually turn out to be for the best’. This is what we’ve all been living through this year. Whether all the upheavals turn out to be for the best remains to be seen.

My list of carnage started back in March, when I split with my then-partner. (Happily, we remain good friends, but these things are never easy at the time, are they)? It continued with a Return of The Pernicious Disease (M.E.), brought on by working WAAAAAAAAAAY too hard for a series of concerts that I was arranging / MD-ing. I hadn’t realised that I had been working an additional 45 – 55 hours per week on top of my normal 45 – 50-hour week, every week for a good 4 – 5 months – enough to bring on a relapse in any M.E. bod! In August came the news that my usually bullet-proof Dad has leukaemia. September brought the death of Jacqui Clarke-Hill, wife of the brilliant musician Tom Clarke-Hill. Her funeral, led by Tom and eldest son Taylor, is something that I will never forget. It was EPIC. As is the entire Clarke-Hill family. Another relapse (this time, quite serious) into M.E-world came in October, and then to cap it all my dear old Golden Retriever, Hamble, died in November. December brought me a nice big bout of the ‘flu. 2010? Yeah, a great year!

It would be easy to write off the entire year as a waste of time but there have been some great times, achievements and events which it would be churlish to dismiss! In February I resigned from my long-standing post as Head of Singing at The Birmingham Theatre School. I took the decision to leave because my duties as Principal of VIDLA take up so much of my time, and when combined with vocal coaching, MD-ing for the Voices Unlimited Contemporary Choir, and gigging, there were just no hours left in the day! I continue to take the odd short-term engagement at the Theatre School, and thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to do so, but I couldn’t possibly continue to put in the hours there that I have been doing for the last 8 years. Leaving BTS freed me up to focus more intently on all of the other strands of my work, and it has worked out very well. Having said that, I popped back in the Summer to work on the Graduation production, Playing for Time, and again this winter for the production of The Roses of Eyam (BTS specialises in happy, jolly, frothy pieces of theatre. In almost no sense at all)!

One of the most fun days of the year – retrospectively – was an outdoor gig with the VU choir, in an absolute downpour complete with thunder and lightning, in the middle of the summer. There was the choir, dry and toasty under a marquis. And there was me, NOT under the marquis, but standing out in the pouring rain doing my arm-waving bit, in a puddle at least 3 inches deep, through which were running the PA cables. I was expecting to die at any moment, what with the lightning and so on, but figured if I was gonna go, this would be a reasonably rock ‘n’ roll way in which to do it!

In July and September I had the pleasure of seeing one of the very best productions of Les Mis ever – the 25th Anniversary Tour. I won’t go on about this again, having written an entire post about it at the time! But I’d say it was the absolute highlight of the year, and brought to my ear the wonderful voice of John Owen Jones, who is in my opinion one of the most outstanding Musical Theatre performers ever to have graced a West End stage. I’m off to see him in concert in February, along with Earl Carpenter and Matthew Cammelle, on the Three Phantoms tour. If you love a good voice and haven’t booked tickets yet, I’d strongly recommend that you do.

Late November and early December saw me recording some tunes for a friend, which reminded me that I hadn’t recorded for a goodly while. This has triggered plans to record a brand-new album in the New Year, which is exciting for me, if not for anyone else!

I’ve also been working hard on my first book throughout the year, and with fingers firmly crossed, a sprinkling of hard graft and a following wind, it should be out in the Spring of 2011. So perhaps 2010 can best be described as year of endings, and new beginnings. Whatever YOUR year has been like, thank you for reading, and I hope you have a very merry Christmas, followed by a healthy, happy and successful 2011. Cheers!

Les Mis 25th Anniversary Tour Magic

Everything meaningful that needs to be written about Les Mis (and please, can we stop spelling it with a ‘Z’?) has already been written, so I’m not going to go down that road. All I can do is try to share some of the absolute magic that was this re-staged and re-styled show, in all its glory.

I first saw this particular production in Bristol. At least, I think it was Bristol. I was so high up in the gods that it might as well have been Edinburgh. I’m desperately short-sighted and so I was worried that I would lose some of the detail. And I did. I couldn’t see anyone’s facial expressions no matter how much I squinted. But nonetheless I was captivated. The re-designed set has been much talked-about and rightly so – it’s magnificent. The Victor Hugo paintings, the projections that seem to make the sewers (and Javert’s death) go on forever……. fantastic. The quality of singing, especially from the men, and especially from John Owen Jones, was overwhelming. But what really sold it to me was the level of performance, and it was that that took me back to see the production again, at The Barbican. This time I was four rows back, and could see every pore!

I could wax lyrical for hours about the all-round wonderful-ness (that’s a word, right there!) of the production. The cast was outstanding, but the real goose-pimple moments – and there were many – were delivered by John Owen Jones, playing Jean Valjean in his utterly unbeatable style, and Jon Robyns, playing Enjolras, who has more charisma than is right or proper in any one human being. Also notable were Earl Carpenter (Javert – another completely stunning voice) and Adam Linstead as Grantaire, whose vocals and characterisation were exceptional.

I had read about John Owen Jones before going to the show (the first time), and had checked him out on youtube, so I was expecting a glorious voice. I wasn’t expecting what I got though. I’m not usually a fan of tenors, but this man’s voice has such presence, such power, such subtlety and such control that he made me want to listen to him forever. I’m even tempted to book tickets to see Phantom – a score I really don’t like – just to hear him sing!  Of course I also have to mention the awesome acting skills. I’ve seen Les Mis before. But actually, perhaps I haven’t. This guy just wipes the floor with all the other JVJs, including Colm Wilkinson. (I’m sorry, I don’t ‘get’ Colm Wilkinson. I’m sure he’s a lovely man and I wish him no offence, but I can’t see or hear what all the fuss is about. Ah well. Horses for courses and all that).The glorious Mr Owen Jones has a CD out, available via itunes, amazon, HMV etc. Go fetch.

Jon Robyns, playing Enjolras, was the other huge highlight of the show, for me. I’d realised he was a bit useful when I (nearly) saw him in Bristol, but close up, I got the full force of his personality. He dominates the stage when he’s on it, with a swagger that I hope isn’t just for the character. My companion for the evening was equally struck by it – you simply cannot take your eyes off him. He deserves to be a star. But then perhaps he doesn’t want to be one so I shouldn’t wish it on him. But what I can say is, whatever he’s in, go see him. He. Totally. Rocks. Especially in that waistcoat

Another delight is the 25th anniversary tour recording, which is absolutely worth buying, even if you own other cast recordings. It was recorded live onstage in Manchester, and so it has that real ‘performance’ feel about it, with none of the sterility of some studio cast recordings. It’s replaced all previous recordings in my collection, even beating the 10th anniversary concert (a tough call, but then the 25th has JOJ and the 10th has Colm……).

Oh, Gareth Gates? Yeah, he was creditable. He clearly lacked the drama school training of the rest of the cast, but he held his head up just fine. He’s not the greatest singer or the greatest actor who ever lived, but given the competition on stage with him, you have to give him his due.

The problem for me, having seen this production, is that I think it’s probably spoiled me for any production that follows…….

….and here was one final joy, speaking as a teacher of singists. When I saw the show at The Queens, back in 2005 (ish?) I was thrilled to see one Christopher Key in the programme, taking the gruelling swing job. The last time I saw Chris he was a gangly 17-year-old auditioning for drama school. I can even remember the song we were working on. (He got in, of course, and he rocked it). So it was thrilling to see him performing in something as high-profile as Les Mis. So proud of him – it’s magical when students and ex-students do well. But imagine my joy, on seeing the 25th anniversary tour, to see him in the programme as Resident Director. The boy dun good! It’s one of the perks of the job – every student who makes progress is a joy, but the ones who go on to do stuff like this (and happily, there are lots of ‘em!) just about make my day, even though it’s sod all to do with my input. Love my job.

M.E? Isn’t that where you get a bit tired?

It was just over ten years ago that the doc told me ‘you’ve got M.E.’  At that point I remember asking questions (from somewhere within my aching, fuzzy-brained, painfully-slow-moving body) along the lines of ‘What’s that?’ and ‘When will it go away?

I didn’t know then that I’d spend the next two years barely able to lift a hairbrush, walk across a room, hold a conversation, read a book or process any kind of new information. It interrupted my studies, ruined my social life, and changed my world forever.

Bloody-minded as I am (or became?), I refused, absolutely, to slide into the depression that so often accompanies the illness, and slowly, slowly, very slowly, improved over the next few years, gradually getting back to work, getting back to what I had been before the wretched virus got me. (Virus? Yes, apparently, it’s a retro-virus, mutated from field mice, according to the BBC website, anyway).

I am now back to roughly 80% of the energy and health that I enjoyed in my pre-M.E. existence. That’ll do, on the whole, but it still isn’t always easy. For example, this week, I have a cold. OK, no-one likes having a cold. But an ‘M.E. person’ likes it even less, let me tell you, because it affects you in ways that other viruses cannot reach. It’s like being hit by a truck – brain stops working, muscles hurt, there is NO energy (and no, I don’t mean ‘ you feel a bit tired’. The comparison between having M.E. and ‘being a bit tired’ is as valid as the comparison between a full-on migraine and a ‘having bit of a headache’, or between sensitive teeth and an abscess, between a slight backache and a slipped disc).

So I still rage against this stupid illness / disease / condition / virus / call it what you like because ten years down the line it’s still capable of stopping me dead in my tracks and ruining an entire week or more. The problem is, no-one ‘gets’ it. No-one understands – unless they have it themselves. Even families of people with it don’t understand, because there is no way to understand until you’re in it. So I get a little, tiny bit fractious with people who just expect me to keep working like a machine because that’s what I usually do. Working like a machine just isn’t possible all the time, especially when the dreaded disease decides it’s going to kick your butt.

I’m lucky because, although I’ve still got it, I’m all the way down to a Level 1 which means I can function perfectly ‘normally’ most of the time – or at least, appear to. But just because I don’t always put it on the outside, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And because I’m not a person given to over-exaggerating things, when I say ‘I’m exhausted, I really can’t do any more’ that’s PRECISELY what I mean. People forget that, and expect…. always expect……

If you know someone with M.E., do them a favour and at least do some basic research – try to understand what it might be like to have your whole world blown apart by an illness that no-one can see or understand, and which changes from day to day, which can put you in a wheelchair one day and looking perfectly normal the next, which fries your brain  and hurts your muscles and joints, and which improves in some people but not in others. There are far, far worse things to have, but that doesn’t make it a soft option.

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=38&Itemid=173

Playing for Time

This Summer I am experiencing the strange feeling of not working 16 – 18 hours a day on the graduation show at BTS. For the last 9 years it’s been the same gruelling routine each June and July – a lot of incredibly hard work followed by a few days of performances, ending in an emotional last night in which the students get to say their goodbyes to each other, and we to them.

During the grad show process, friendships are made which last forever, and memories are indelibly stamped (although none will ever eclipse the Polyushko Polye moment in last year’s War & Peace. I shan’t bore you, you had to be there, but I can say it was the single funniest thing I’ve ever, ever seen, and it still brings a smile to the faces of everyone who was there).

And this year, I’m not there to participate in it. I’ve done a couple of workshops here and there to  help to get the vocals into shape, but that’s a far cry from the usual day-in-day-out slog that I’ve been used to. I’m not there because I officially resigned from the dear old place back in February; my other work commitments are just too great.

Do I miss it? You’d have to be mad to miss that mayhem. But I am perhaps, a little mad It was time to move on and I don’t regret the decision, but part of me would have liked to have seen it through, despite the health problems that were part of the decision to leave. (Happily, they seem to have gone away now)!

Anyway, point of blog – the grad show this year is called Playing for Time. It’s an Arthur Miller play about the all-female orchestra who played whilst held captive in Auschwitz. It’s an extraordinary play. Very dark.  But absolutely worth a visit, if you happen to be passing near The Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, between now and this coming Saturday (17th July). I’ll see you there.

Voices Unlimited Rock Worcester Again!

The Voices Unlimited Contemporary Choir (or at least, about 60 of the 90-strong membership) did three gigs at the Worcester Victorian Fayre yesterday, and absolutely stopped the town dead each time!

The first two shows were in (wait for it, oh the glamour!) the M & S loading bay on Worcester’s historic Friar Street. It doesn’t sound like much of a venue, granted, but the atmosphere generated by the choir’s singing, and the enthusiasm of the crowd, who blocked the street for the duration of both performances, ensured that nobdy cared!

The crowd were unbelievable, both in terms of numbers (we were told that we were by far the biggest draw of the Fayre) and in the sense that they were willing to stand in the cold and listen to the choir sing for 30 minutes, when they could have been getting on with drinking Gluhwein or enjoying their Christmas shopping at the Fayre, which is a lovely annual event to which people travel from miles around.

Many ‘out of towners’ approached me afterwards and said that they were so glad that they’d travelled to Worcester, just so that they could hear the choir.

The final performance of the day took place in the deconsecrated St. Swithun’s church, which is a beautiful listed building that we first performed in this summer, as part of the Worcester Musica Festival. Given that the church is unheated, we weren’t really expecting many people to come and sit through an entire show, but the choir sang to a full house and received an absolutely amazing response.

Congratulations to all of the choir members for their tremendous achievements this year. I was very happy to be your Musical Director yesterday, despite the cold, the stress of setting up in a town centre which was just heaving with thousands of people, and the ‘glamour’ of singing in a loading bay! Ha ha!

I for one am looking forward to continuing to work with you in 2010, which promises to be an exiting year, and I know that choir manager Anne Bradshaw feels very much the same!

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