The Hills are Alive…

As regulars here will know, my am dram performances often pepper this blog. It’s a while since I’ve been in an actual show, my last being The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 2010 which was obviously so outrageous I can’t show my face in town again. But our little group, Spalding Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society (SADOS), do concerts from time to time and this keeps my hand in, so to speak.

You may remember our Christmas concerts last year where I spoiled the song from Wicked, ‘One Short Day’, by singing ‘one short day in the haemorrhoid city’ instead of ’emerald’. Our MD still hasn’t forgiven me as there is much corpsing whenever we sing that number. It was included in the set we did for a group of WI ladies on Monday night in the Village Hall in Pinchbeck, near Spalding. I was under strict instructions not to set everyone off again.

We’ve had a good laugh, as usual, during rehearsals but things always suddenly seem serious on the night itself when butterflies and inability to eat any tea seem to be the curse of most of us luvvies. My contribution to the concert this week was a duet with our MD, Craig. We sang ‘Tonight’ from West Side Story. I was practising it in the kitchen in front of Dougie at the weekend. His comment was ‘ooh it’s very high’ which was a real confidence booster, though, to be fair, I was screeching a bit and he could only hear one side of the duet so it was inevitably lop-sided.

One of my favourite numbers in the concert is a four-part harmony arrangement of The Sound of Music: it’s absolutely spine-tingling when we all hit the right notes. Another favourite is ‘You’ll Never walk Alone’ which had such relevance this week with the Hillsborough inquiry revelations. I was pretty choked up singing that one, so was grateful it was a chorus number.

Having won over the ladies in Pinchbeck, we have to do the same again with a shorter set on Saturday night at All Saints Church in my own town, Holbeach, as part of their Arts Festival. The first half of the concert features the Holbeach Town Band and then SADOS sings songs from the shows in  the second half. So will be warbling my duet again.

I wrote earlier this week about the immense power of music: how I discovered via a chance encounter with jazz drummer Ronnie Gardiner, the health benefits music can bring to those with brain injuries.  During that meeting Ronnie and I both recalled a video we had seen on YouTube showing an old man suffering from dementia, and the way music had changed his silent, insular world.

If you have time, take a look at this video and you will see something quite remarkable.

I give you….Henry.

(If you can’t view the video below, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyZQf0p73QM )