| Sing-a-long-a Productions – The
story so far
Lets start at the very beginning, a very good
place to start…
Allegedly the first ever sing-a-long happened at an
old people’s home in Inverness. The nurses wanted
to involve the old people in an interactive group therapy
and so screened Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and
gave out song sheets so that everyone could sing-a-long
(sound familiar?). The idea was then developed for
the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in London in 1999
before opening at the Prince Charles Cinema in August
of that year. It soon became apparent that the main
audience for the show was young women, who discovered
that attending the show in large groups was a fun,
safe and bonding experience. Initially, there was an
eight-show run but by the end of this run the show
had sold out, picked up amazing TV coverage and amassed
a stack of newspaper stories. Demand was so huge that
the telephone answering service at the cinema blew
up! The regular bi-weekly shows of Sing-a-long-a Sound
of Music at the Prince Charles began.
The current show
The show that you will now see has evolved quite a
bit over time. Originally the show was done with
an old print of The Sound of Music with the subtitles
digitally projected over the film. We have since
had brand new prints of the film made with the subtitles
burned onto the celluloid and introduced free “magic
moment” fun bags given to every audience member
(read more on our 'what happens at the show' page).
The UK is alive with the sound of music
Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music has been on tour around
the UK since January 2000 visiting almost every major
venue in the country. In 2001 over 7,000 dressed
up to sing-a-long-a outside at the famous Kenwood
stately home and to this day the show still plays
to sell-out audiences wherever it goes.
I’d like to teach the world to sing…
Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music has also taken the world
by storm including Amsterdam, Dublin, New York, St
Louis, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, Sydney,
Melbourne, Auckland, Oslo, Stockholm and many other
major cities around the globe. Undoubtedly the highlight
of this was two sell-out performances to 18,000 people
at the historic Hollywood Bowl including the film's
director Robert Wise and writer Ernest Lehman.
Famous sing-a-longers
The great and the not so good who have been spotted
warbling under their wimples:
Frank Skinner
Tessa Dahl
Alan Yentob
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
Zammo from Grange Hill
Charmian Carr (Liesl)
Dan Ackroyd
Nicholas Hammond
Jack Dee
In 2001, Elton John and 40 of his friends
dressed up as nuns to ‘sing-a-long with Julie’.
Elton had hired the smash hit show Sing-a-long-a Sound
of Music for a private party to celebrate boyfriend
David Furnish’s birthday.
After a celebratory lunch at the Ivy, the party of
40 donned habits and tuned their vocal chords to sing-a-long
with the smash hit show Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music.
Celebrity faces spotted under their wimples included
Elton John and boyfriend David, Lulu, Janet Street
Porter, Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys, Hugh Grant
and Joan Collins.
The phenomenon grows……
Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music was followed in early
2002 by the first ever live sing-a-long-a show – Sing-a-long-a
Abba which, in early 2004, is beginning its third
annual UK tour. It enjoyed a highly successful run
at The Whitehall Theatre in London’s West End
in 2003 and has played in Toronto, New Zealand and
St Petersburg, Russia, as well as a sell-out run
at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002.
The growing “stable” of sing-long-a
shows now includes Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat (launched by Donny Osmond in 2002), Wizard
of Oz, Rocky Horror Picture Show and, in 2004, the
second live show, Sing-a-long-a Elvis.
There have been one-off or short runs in London of
Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Moulin Rouge and Annie.
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