If you don’t get the ingredients right, then pie can be pretty boring, and even a side of something new might lack appeal, leaving those who have eaten the dish feeling rather unsatisfied. However, had this particular pie been on one of the TV cookery competitions, I have no doubt that it would have emerged the winner, with all those tasting it going back for more.
BMT simply seem incapable of getting it wrong and, not for the first time with this company, I am struggling to find something new to say that will adequately describe just how very good this evening proved to be. The concert begins, a soloist starts to sing and you hear murmurings around you of the vocal quality of the person concerned. Then there’s another, and another, and very soon the realisation dawns that every one of the sixteen people on stage has a great voice and can really put a number over so that everyone will sit up and take notice. Furthermore, when there’s a chorus number, it’s plain that they are all working as one, with ne’er so much as a finger pointing the wrong way, so all credit to musical director James Stead and the un-named director for a job brilliantly done.
The rich ingredients of this delicious pie include songs from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, with Michael Boucher proving to be a most appealing Joseph; My Fair Lady, in which Daisy Lapworth’s ‘I could have danced all night’ was gorgeous, as was James Dixon Box’s ‘On the street where you live’; Rent; Evita; Chess – the latter’s ‘Someone else’s story’ beautifully sung by Anne-Marie Davies – and the company’s forthcoming show, The Wizard of Oz.
Also in the pie were numbers from Me & My Girl and two superbly performed songs from Gypsy – the hilarious ‘You gotta get a gimmick’ and ‘Everything’s coming up roses’, the latter given every ounce of emotion by the powerful-voiced Becky Willis – plus A Chorus Line, Guys & Dolls and Starlight Express.
As I write, I’m realising that the ‘side of something new’ must vary in size quite considerably from person to person, as indeed must the pie. My pie was pretty huge, I guess, as all that was left for a side dish was just one number I didn’t know: ‘Not my father’s son’ from Kinky Boots, brilliantly sung by Neil Tallant. Other people’s pies may have been smaller and their side dishes rather larger, but no matter. The important thing was the taste, and it was sublime.
There is a chance to taste it for yourself on Saturday 25 February at 7.30, but if you aren’t able to get there, then make a note in your diary that the company will be performing The Wizard of Oz at the Regent Centre in Christchurch from May 31 to June 3. It has also just been announced that the company is only the second adult amateur group in the country to have been given permission to perform Starlight Express, and this will take place at the Life Centre, Moordown, during November.
