A very moving and sad occasion yesterday.
Mike Smith's funeral.
In glorious Summer sunshine we joined friends and family of the broadcaster & helicopter pilot to celebrate the far-too-early demise of Smithy.
It was a huge honour to be invited...
We helped lead the singing of the excellent music choices; Bring Me Sunshine & Lean on Me & also sang the piece that Cantabile - The London Quartet premiered at Mike and Sarah's wedding 25 years ago... written by Julie Cooper & our old friend Hugh Wooldridge - Pageant!
Many speeches from friends and family were appropriately warm and loving, but Sarah made an especially wonderful speech bringing tears to eyes and lumps to throats... goodness knows how she managed to say it all, but filled with Mike's celebrated joie de vivre, she insisted that life would & could go on.
A beautiful event - as ever with funerals both miserable and life-enhancing.
We can't help but notice that after Mel's last year, this is the second summer during the Edinburgh Festival in which we have sung at the funeral of an M Smith... hoping this does not become a habit...
Showing posts with label Hugh Wooldridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hugh Wooldridge. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 August 2014
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Crazy #3, then Banstead
Third night at Crazy Coqs was best of all....
Great climax to our short stint & the beginning of a long relationship...
Having had director Hugh Wooldridge in earlier in the week (who introduced us), it was excellent to also have actor-superstar David Bedella in the audience... Hooray!
Very enthusiastic and loud audience - three birthday parties in - & splendidly raucous singing in The Lambeth Walk when we asked for such...
Incredibly good experience working at Crazy Coqs - looking forward to more...
It was gratifying too to hear that members of the audience had pitched up because they had seen/heard us on BBC TV and Radio over the last few weeks... marvellous!
Good to bump into bassist Jonty Fisher, preparing to back all in the open mike late night after our third show (we last saw him when playing together with Kate Dimbleby)...
Off to Banstead Festival tonight for a splendid evening in the Green Belt.
Great climax to our short stint & the beginning of a long relationship...
Having had director Hugh Wooldridge in earlier in the week (who introduced us), it was excellent to also have actor-superstar David Bedella in the audience... Hooray!
Very enthusiastic and loud audience - three birthday parties in - & splendidly raucous singing in The Lambeth Walk when we asked for such...
Incredibly good experience working at Crazy Coqs - looking forward to more...
It was gratifying too to hear that members of the audience had pitched up because they had seen/heard us on BBC TV and Radio over the last few weeks... marvellous!
Good to bump into bassist Jonty Fisher, preparing to back all in the open mike late night after our third show (we last saw him when playing together with Kate Dimbleby)...
Off to Banstead Festival tonight for a splendid evening in the Green Belt.
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Seasons of Love
Fabulous charity evening at the Royal Albert Hall a few days ago...
Lovely array of stars, and a gloriously moving & life-enhancing show for all.
Lynda Bellingham, Janie Dee, Jennifer Ellison, Jan Harvey, Julia Hills, Sue Holderness, Lesley Joseph, Gay Soper, Hannah Waterman, June Watson, Stephen Tomkinson, Christopher Timothy, Peter Skellern, Richard Stilgoe, Edward Baruwa, Tiffany Graves, Patrick Doyle, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Tim Firth, Alan Titchmarsh, Tabitha Webb, Debbie Kurup, DMJ & Willy Russell... were all there live; John Alderton, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie & Patricia Hodge all appeared on film with messages of support.
Also on film was Neil Sedaka, who was clearly delighted that we sang his song, Calendar Girl... we were delightfully aided in not looking too dreadful in our 'dancing' as we were joined by the gorgeous and talented, Rossana Stocchino & Lucie Waugh, who danced beautifully.
We also sang Scarborough Fair (in our great John Rutter arrangement) with the excellent harpist, Vicky Lester.
Another wonderful moment, when a young tenor from the West End Chorus, Ian, stepped in at just a few hours notice, and sang the absurdly hard song, 'Til I Hear You Sing from Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies - terrific job to learn a song over night & do it so amazingly in the show
The show was a celebration of the work of those WI Calendar Girls who we know from the film and stage play, but are real splendid Yorkshire people whose calendar has to date made £3m for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research...
The audience, it was clear, loved the film, the play and these amazing fund-raisers.
The evening culminated in the real Calendar Girls, along with their photographer Terry Logan, coming onstage, and being the recipients of the first Baker awards, which will from now on be awarded annually for people who do great things for fund-raising.
The 'Girls' were tickled pink when the postman from their village of Cracoe, who had only been to London once before ("It's all right", he said when asked by Alan T. how he found it)... very moving and funny all at once.
Indeed we all sang Jerusalem together at the end it all...
Hugh Wooldridge as ever, did a wonderful, efficient job devising and directing all this, and getting it to work in the RAH over just a few hours... super MD: Kevin Amos, wonderful choreographer: Kevan Allen.
PS: lovely also for me to hear once more Make Our Garden Grow from Bernstein's Candide, which we had sung at our wedding...
Lovely array of stars, and a gloriously moving & life-enhancing show for all.
Lynda Bellingham, Janie Dee, Jennifer Ellison, Jan Harvey, Julia Hills, Sue Holderness, Lesley Joseph, Gay Soper, Hannah Waterman, June Watson, Stephen Tomkinson, Christopher Timothy, Peter Skellern, Richard Stilgoe, Edward Baruwa, Tiffany Graves, Patrick Doyle, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Tim Firth, Alan Titchmarsh, Tabitha Webb, Debbie Kurup, DMJ & Willy Russell... were all there live; John Alderton, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie & Patricia Hodge all appeared on film with messages of support.
Also on film was Neil Sedaka, who was clearly delighted that we sang his song, Calendar Girl... we were delightfully aided in not looking too dreadful in our 'dancing' as we were joined by the gorgeous and talented, Rossana Stocchino & Lucie Waugh, who danced beautifully.
We also sang Scarborough Fair (in our great John Rutter arrangement) with the excellent harpist, Vicky Lester.
Another wonderful moment, when a young tenor from the West End Chorus, Ian, stepped in at just a few hours notice, and sang the absurdly hard song, 'Til I Hear You Sing from Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies - terrific job to learn a song over night & do it so amazingly in the show
The show was a celebration of the work of those WI Calendar Girls who we know from the film and stage play, but are real splendid Yorkshire people whose calendar has to date made £3m for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research...
The audience, it was clear, loved the film, the play and these amazing fund-raisers.
The evening culminated in the real Calendar Girls, along with their photographer Terry Logan, coming onstage, and being the recipients of the first Baker awards, which will from now on be awarded annually for people who do great things for fund-raising.
The 'Girls' were tickled pink when the postman from their village of Cracoe, who had only been to London once before ("It's all right", he said when asked by Alan T. how he found it)... very moving and funny all at once.
Indeed we all sang Jerusalem together at the end it all...
Hugh Wooldridge as ever, did a wonderful, efficient job devising and directing all this, and getting it to work in the RAH over just a few hours... super MD: Kevin Amos, wonderful choreographer: Kevan Allen.
PS: lovely also for me to hear once more Make Our Garden Grow from Bernstein's Candide, which we had sung at our wedding...
Monday, 12 December 2011
Wonderful Captain Beaky for UNICEF
Fantastic evening at the RAH... Captain Beaky and his wonderful band were all there... Lots of dancers from National Youth Ballet (playing a large array of animals - not a dry eye at times), and a Kirov & ENB master, Dmitri Gruzdyev, as well as Jeremy Lloyd & Jim Parker (writer and composer), Joanna Lumley, Roger Moore & Deborah Moore, Alan Titchmarsh, Hugh Bonneville, Rosie Ashe & the original Captain Beaky himself, Keith Michell, appearing both on large screen and in a box in the audience to rapturous applause. Also old friends from Chess in Concert, Tabitha Webb, Tiffany Graves, Caroline Sheen, & Jon Robyns - who used his Avenue Q experience to bring Hissing Sid to life!
Our contributions were accompanying Rosie in Desmond the Duck, being accompanied by David Firman & the excellent band in Doreen the Duckling, and getting away from ducks, we sang an a cappella Wendell the Worm. We provided comments from 'offstage' in a poem read by Joanna Lumley - back to the Ds... Dilys the Dachshund, and we all sang together in There's a Light...
Splendid to see the octogenarians strut their stuff, Roger Moore in his DJ (only with green tights on his legs - he told us it was all the rage); and Jeremy Lloyd clearly moved and loving his words being displayed again to a packed house.
Mike gave Alan T. a DVD copy of Christmas Pebble Mill show that had involved both AT and Cantabile in the 1980s... the green-fingered one was delighted and said he had nothing from that time he could watch!
A glorious evening - all in aid of UNICEF... & put together by Director, Hugh Wooldridge with his usual aplomb - let's hope it can happen again sometime...
I'll ask Joanna the next time I see her at my local bus station (I've seen her before!)
Our contributions were accompanying Rosie in Desmond the Duck, being accompanied by David Firman & the excellent band in Doreen the Duckling, and getting away from ducks, we sang an a cappella Wendell the Worm. We provided comments from 'offstage' in a poem read by Joanna Lumley - back to the Ds... Dilys the Dachshund, and we all sang together in There's a Light...
Splendid to see the octogenarians strut their stuff, Roger Moore in his DJ (only with green tights on his legs - he told us it was all the rage); and Jeremy Lloyd clearly moved and loving his words being displayed again to a packed house.
Mike gave Alan T. a DVD copy of Christmas Pebble Mill show that had involved both AT and Cantabile in the 1980s... the green-fingered one was delighted and said he had nothing from that time he could watch!
A glorious evening - all in aid of UNICEF... & put together by Director, Hugh Wooldridge with his usual aplomb - let's hope it can happen again sometime...
I'll ask Joanna the next time I see her at my local bus station (I've seen her before!)
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