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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. |
