Part One
The Beginning of the Dream?.
It can all be traced back to Mikey Rowell’s beard! It made such an impression that all one could do was to pay homage and somehow try to follow in its footsteps (if beards had feet, obviously.)
Perhaps I should explain further.
There I was, recently arrived from Glasgow- a new boy in the big, bad town of Oban. It was spring 1994 and I was in the audience for Oban Operatic Society’s performance of “My Fair Lady”. Mike was one of the few people I knew (from our association with Ballet West) and he had invited me to come to see the show. I had only seen Mike in ballets before- he looks great in tights and can fall over on stage with the best of them- and so I was unprepared for the artistic tour de force that was his ‘cunning linguist from Hungary’ (with a beard you could lose a badger in), that lit up the stage like a Mike shaped beacon. From that moment on I knew I would join the society and as we all now know, the world would never be the same again.
The society’s next venture was ‘Summer Showtime’ and so, when I came along to Park School for the first time to join Oops, I was issued with the mythical ‘green folder’ that contained dozens of songs from the shows that we would delight the masses with, once a week, during the summer of ’94.
When I joined I was worried that my singing voice would not be up to the society’s high standards and I would be turned away, shattering all my dreams. I soon realised that a tuneful voice was very much an optional extra and my enthusiasm and Tony’s coaching soon had me joining in lustily with “It’s a Lovely Day”, “Oklahoma” and all the other classics from the green folder. The crowds for these performances were sometimes small- performers outnumbering audience on occasion- but appreciative and it certainly whetted my appetite for something bigger.
That ‘something bigger’ was my first full length show with the society- “Barnum”.
Tune in next time for exciting tales of tightrope walking, juggling, unicycling and falling off the stage during dress rehearsals!
