"A Night At the Musicals"

Long Clawson Village Hall.

This wonderful night was in aid of The Brain Tumour Charity, and in exchange for very little monetary investment everybody who packed the Long Clawson Village Hall received in return the most marvellous wealth of talent and a catalogue of musical theatre gems. A night right up my street and I have to thank Katherine Vernon for asking me along.

The Brain Tumour Charity relies 100% on donations and midway through the evening Katherine reported that with all the ticket sales, raffle tickets sold and the cakes and refreshments, just over £2000 had been raised, enough to fund one whole year of bioluminescence imaging for gliobastomia research, and that's not the final balance either. The charity was chosen, and the style of the event, because of Katherine's Aunt Teresa was diagnosed with a brain tumour and she sadly passed away six years ago.

A fantastically talented bunch of performers, who you can see on stage in various guises and musicals around the area performed twenty-nine musical theatre pieces and from the beautifully choreographed ensemble opening of "One Night In Bangkok" to the closing dance party classic "Dancing Queen", it was like listening to a compilation album of all of your favourite musical theatre songs, most you'll know well with the occasional little known gem thrown in.

Giving their everything on stage were Victoria Adams, Tash Bailey, Amy Beale, Georgie Bladon, Sam Carter, Peter Etherington, Katie Felts, Ryan Green, Jojo Helstrip, Andrew Hull, Kiri Humphreys, Steph Lingard, Andy Longley-Brown, Debbie Longley-Brown, Megan Lowe, Vikki Taylor, Leanne Thornton, Chris Warmington and, of course Katherine Vernon, who also acted as host for the show.

I loved every single performance, but of course one is going to have favourite songs, and all my favourites included were performed exactly the way I hoped they would be performed.

Vikki gave me shivers and tingles a plenty with "My Days" from "The Notebook", Andy made me smile with "You'll Be Back" from "Hamilton", as did Andrew and Chris' "Agony" from "Into the Woods". "Seasons Of Love" showcased a wonderful ensemble performance with some insane solos, "In His Eyes" from "Jekyll & Hyde" made me melt; Georgie and Katherine's vocals were so well matched. 

"Gethsemane" from "Jesus Christ Superstar" is one of those massive songs that often falls just a little flat because of the big falsetto piece and I've often heard it flattened and reduced from falsetto because those notes can be so hard to pitch correctly, so when Chris started singing I really hoped that he would be able to get somewhere close to how it should be sung. I've heard professional touring companies shy away from the "big note" but Chris absolutely nailed - if you'll pardon the pun - the note mid way through as well as the one at the end; possibly one of the best versions of that song since Ted Neely in the original film version. Sam Ryder should be looking over his shoulder with a falsetto like Chris's.

"Requiem" from "Dear Evan Hansen" was sublimely sung by Megan, Debbie and Andy. Another one of my all time favourite ballads from a musical is "I Know Where I've Been" from "Hairspray", and you need a powerful set of lungs to do this song justice and, as with Chris's "Gethsemane", Tash smashed the vocals right out of the Village Hall and all the way to Melton. With a backing trio who brought the gospel backing, this version was also a massive crowd pleaser, and rightly so!

Ryan's "My Petersberg" from "Anastacia" also showed off the power and control in his voice.

The "Elephant Love Medley"  from "Moulin Rouge" was one that I'd not really paid much attention to in the past, but I am going to revisit that soundtrack, thanks to Andy and Debbie.

I could mention every performance tonight for credit, because there's not one performance that didn't impress me. A selection that spanned decades of musical theatre favourites; classics as well as newer gems highlighted the talents that local theatre performers have in abundance, and it was always a given, from me at least, that there was only one way that this evening was going to end; with a richly deserved standing ovation.