Gscene News Archive

The Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus opened this year’s ‘Pride Week’ celebrations with their new show ‘The Last Resort’ at St George Church, Kemptown, last night.

The show was delayed for 15 minutes to allow latecomers get to their seats safely. From then on it was all plain sailing. Well almost. An early entry, by someone waving a rainbow flag one number early, gave the evening one of its funniest moments, however this little ‘faux pas' was professionally covered up by the chorus.

The Last Resort charts the journey of a young gay man from Grimthorpe who leaves home to find love in Brighton! Well the Bulldog actually. His parents come to Brighton to find him and tempt him back from the sin of Brighton to the excitement of Grimthorpe, giving the show some of its most sensitive moments.

Musical director Ignacio Jarquin weaves musical lines from every part of the chorus, making sure all the clever harmonies in the arrangement are clear for everyone to hear.

The effect was very musical and warm.

Special mention must go to the Steve Humphries and Nic Collins who bring a vulnerability to their roles of the young boy from Yorkshire and Mr Right who he meets in Brighton.

What could have easily been sugar sweet and sickly was genuinely heart-warming and convincing.

Rod Edmunds as dad played a part in the two highlights of the show for me singing Sondheim’s ‘Losing my mind’ from Follies and ‘Bring him home’ from Les Miserables when the choir really came into their own with fabulously close and warm harmonies providing classic choral accompaniment to Rod's beautiful vocal line. Jonathan Cave as mum was a perfect foil both vocally and comedy wise to dad.

Chorus highlights included the anthemic Robbie Williams number 'Angels', 'I am what I' am from La Cage Aux Folles and the finale rendition of 'Aquarius and Let The Sunshine' in from the musical Hair.

The strength of this choir is in their close harmonies, which were ideally suited to the acoustics of St Georges, but some of the more up tempo numbers were less secure in the acoustics of such a large church.

The evening was held together by the talented Loraine Bowen who can do it all, comedy, singing and dancing.

The Brighton Gay Men’s chorus meet weekly and they have a vocal workshop once a month. You don’t need to read music and this is a great way to meet new friends off the commercial scene.

The choir clearly love their work which they effectively communicate to their audience.

There is another show tonight at 7.30pm. There are a few tickets left and well worth a Saturday night visit.

For more information about the chorus view:
www.cbmc.org

To become a members email:
membership@brightongmc.org
or telephone 07968 853625