Birmingham

I’m feeling better today, but that cold is still hanging in there despite plenty of fluids, vitamin C, warmth and rest. I went with Brett down to his gym this evening and spent half an hour in the hot tub and by the time I got home again I was feeling rough and in need of a sit down. I’m hoping that another good night’s sleep and a relatively easy day tomorrow will get it out of my system; I want to be on stage in Brighton tomorrow night.

Today has been mostly spent watching TV. Brett went out shopping and came back with the Christmas edition of the Radio Times (which annoyingly doesn’t cover New Year this year!) so all of our Christmas TV is programmed into Tivo for when we get back. He also bought two Christmas presents for me which are now sitting under the tree. I am very frustrated; I suspect I know what might be in one of them, but the other is shaped (and sounds) like a VHS cassette and I’m racking my brains to think what he might buy me that isn’t available on DVD. I’m assuming it isn’t porn, as I’ll be opening it in front of his parents, and I don’t know of any recordings of Chorus events that I might want that would only be on VHS and any movies or old TV series I might enjoy are almost certainly out on DVD...

I am intrigued. Watch this space in ten days for the ‘reveal.’

There has been a lot of positive feedback from our Birmingham show on Wednesday, although personally I think there were quite a few rough edges. The small group sounded very good though; they do a piece called ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ in which their voices blended so perfectly it almost brought tears to my eyes. They also back Rula Lenska in ‘Mad About The Boy,’ which for some reason I love – partly for the staging and partly for the harmony of their sound I think.

My own personal performance was passable, although I fumbled a couple of lines that I should know very well by now and, even though I mouthed my way through the worst parts of the congregational carols to save my voice, it still gave out during Bootylicious.

The venue was fabulous though; a two-thousand seater hall with a very easy acoustic. We hardly had to project at all, the sound just carried. It even had a massive pipe organ, which Charlie put to good use during some of the folk carols. The interior décor was a little bit strange though… looked like it had been inspired by a 1950’s American Diner. It wasn’t quite all red vinyl and chrome, but it looked like that might have been a distant relative…

The parents certainly seemed to enjoy themselves though. We got to see them briefly both before and after the show despite the tight transport schedule, so I was happy on the way home.

For those of you who can’t get tickets to one of our concerts, a live recording of the show will be broadcast by Gaydar Radio between 12noon and 2pm GMT on Christmas Day.