My cultural life: Last Choir Standing, George Sampson and Make it Happen

It helped that I was in what must surely have been one of the best seats in the house: slap bang in the middle of the studio’s semicircular balcony, with a perfect view of the entire stage. Every time a camera craned back to take in the whole stage, you’d get a good idea of what my view was like, as it would end up just inches from my head.

I haven’t yet seen Saturday’s show back as broadcast (like a lummox, I forgot to record it, and iPlayer is not yet showing it), but from the clips broadcast on Sunday’s show, TV fails to convey the impressive sound quality coming from the best of the choirs, while showing up some of the struggles that older choir members had with the emphasis on choreography that the show’s Saturday night ethos seems to be placing on all the choirs. City of Bath Male Choir, in particular, seemed particularly vulnerable in this area — but in the studio, their voices really came to the fore, and as a choir competition that really how they should be judged.

That said, Bath were one of the weaker choirs in the individual performances. Up in the Gods, we were particularly impressed by Ysgol Glanaethwy, ACM Gospel Choir and Only Men Aloud. It was no real surprise that Sense of Sound and Revelation ended up in the bottom two for the results show (as is the way of these things, recorded on Saturday evening for broadcast on Sunday). In a way, though, it was disappointing that a couple of the other groups didn’t have the chance this week to perform their own sing-off song: between the live show and the results show recording, each choir rehearsed their chosen song in front of the audience. In each case, the sing-off song was superior to the choir’s competition song. I would have loved to hear ACM Gospel Choir’s elimination song again — though, given that they’ll only sing it once they’re at risk, maybe not too soon.

As it was, it was interesting how the two ‘at risk’ choirs coped with their survival song was revealing. Sense of Sound, singing Lamb’s Gabriel, delivered in spades in rehearsal — but under the pressure of the ‘real’ performance, had tuning problems and a hesitancy that were not present in their rehearsal. In contrast, Revelation’s rehearsal rendition of Lovely Day was good, but in the actual broadcast they really pulled out all the stops. As a result, the judges were right to save Revelation, and I look forward to the next few weekends of choral entertainment.

Earlier in the week, I was in the more traditional environs of a West End theatre — the Novello — for a gala performance of Into the Hoods, celebrating the latest cast change for the last four weeks of the hip-hop dance extravaganza. If you’ve been out and about in London recently, chances are you’ll have seen the posters trumpeting the addition of Britain’s Got Talent winner George Sampson. Truth be told, his role is far smaller than the publicity may suggest — but that’s no bad thing. His routine on BGT won him many fans, but when he’s put in a troupe of professionals it’s clear how much he has to learn.

That’s not to say he’s bad — far from it. Indeed, near the end of the second act when he joins the main troupe for a series of synchronised routines, it’s clear that his confidence level shoots up, and you’d be hard pressed to single him out as one of the least experienced dancers on there. Throughout the rest of the show, though, he doesn’t quite have the confidence to be a solo performer — yet. He’s clearly got a good career ahead of him, but right now he doesn’t quite deserve the Beatlemania-esque screams from the teenage girls that he gets whenever he appears on stage.

Prior to that, I was invited to a preview screening of Make it Happen, a film which went on general release on Friday, about a girl who moves to Chicago to audition for a performing arts school, doesn’t get in and ends up working in a burlesque bar instead. All I have to say about it is that, for the sake of verisimilitude, it should really be renamed Make it Stop. Dear God, Make it Stop.

And just to sign off, in our daily Edinburgh Fringe podcast, Saturday’s edition features an interview with Any Dream Will Do’s Keith Jack and I’d Do Anything’s Niamh Perry, who are starring in a new musical, Only the Brave. Listen to the individual episode from the podcast blog, or you can download all episodes (and subscribe to get all future ones automatically) from the Edinburgh Fringe Podcast iTunes page.