After months of under-the-radar planning and rehearsal, on Sunday 22nd December I surprised my wonderful partner Naomi with this performance.
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Context:
Naomi loves watching people perform live but knows I don’t have a musical bone in my body. Always considered myself tone deaf and rhythmically challenged. But that just made for a perfect surprise. The Greatest Showman is one of her favourite films and Soundtracks, which led me to this song.
Between work and our two kids we rarely have time to go out. A week ago I surprised her with tickets to a ‘wine and cheese’ event at a hotel in a nearby town. The tickets were fake, but gave me an excuse to get babysitters, and strategically walk past a ‘random’ bar for us to dip into...
... here’s a video of how it went down.
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Thanks:
HUGE thanks to Mike Freeman and the Singers Space in Soho (London) for teaching me to sing. I couldn’t hit one note before his lessons.
HUGE thanks to Becca and Alie the warm and immensely talented musicians, and to Kris Boobyer and the Enchorus choir (Alex, Amy, Giulia, Jamie, Josephine, Katie, Louisa, Shayanne), who all sounded amazing.
HUGE thanks to The Boom in Windsor, Barry the Manager, Brad PR Manager, and the staff that looked after us.
HUGE thanks to Yasmin for helping me keep my head screwed on rehearsing, assembling and choreographing the amazing dancers (George, Bianca, Felix, Lashon, Jonny) and to Billy and Julian for filming it all.
But most of all thanks to Naomi, who everyday helps me see and do things I’d never imagined. I’d do this a thousand times over for her.