
Last night I was at O2 Arena for the launch of Voices for a Better World, a project to raise funds for dedicated children’s charities Global Angels and Arts by Children - two international organisations which work at a grass-roots level to support the needs of children around the world. The architecturally unlovely, noisy, crowd-pulling Disney-esque dome - with its weird ideas about courtesy (or lack of it) to the press, inadequate lavatories and inconvenient access is not exactly my favourite venue but all my frustrations and grumbles were stopped short by the scale and power of the event itself once it started.
Kevin Dowsett, founder of Theatretrain — the very successful chain of franchised part-time stage schools for children — devised and directed the pretty spectacular show, The Long and Winding Road, which is based on the Beatles story and featured 34 Beatles tracks, including Ticket to Ride, A Hard Day’s Night and Can’t Buy Me Love. The massed chorus sang, conducted by the larger-than-life Robert Hyman with live orchestra, and there were solo numbers by youngsters who had auditioned and some short contributions by professionals such as Bill Bailey, Kevin Eldon, Cheryl Fergison, Elaine Glover, Tony Hirst and Nemsis.
But this was not a Theatretrain production. This time the main body of performers was 4,700 school children, aged 9-14, from primary, secondary, special and specialist schools in London and the south east. So it was quite a training experience for very large numbers and highly inclusive.



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