Next touring Wrexham, Llandaff Cathedral, Bristol, Dorking until 03 November.
I expect, in the West at least, vocal harmony began with a monk’s first-ever mistake and over a millennium on from what must have been a shocking, ear-opening plainchant blunder, with extraordinary close four-part harmony, we now have Johns’ Boys Welsh Male Voice Choir charming and moving a Grand Theatre audience with concords of sweet sounds.
Remarkably, the rigours of a long and demanding U.K. tour – this was the 11th. leg – are yet to manifest as fatigue, with their sets of love songs, spirituals, operatic choruses, hymns and hits from the shows performed, without vocal scores, with passion, musicianship and much impish good humour.
Given the static confines of a choir on stage, portrayals of animated crowd scenes – the Bandits’ Chorus from Verdi’s early opera Ernani, There Ain’t Nothing Like A Dame from Rogers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific and With Cat-Like Tread from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance – proved somewhat awkwardly restricted in their choreography, though such a lack of space detracted nothing from the musical characterisation. Indeed, the South Pacific number, with deft, fleeting exchanges and idiomatic Yankee drawl, was one of the many highlights of the night.
Marvin Hamlisch’s soulful What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line and the strident and defiant Bui Doi from Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Miss Saigon showed the range of moods and versatility of the show numbers.
Perhaps, most rewarding of all, were the tasteful and informed arrangements for the choir from founder and conductor Aled Phillips – the rousing and inspirational Myfanwy, Ennio Morricone’s exquisite Nella Fantasia, Robbie Williams’ rhapsodic Angels, the sustained lyricism of Harry Styles’ Falling, Calum Scott’s impassioned You Are The Reason and their undoubted signature number since a successful appearance on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, the collaborative Biblical, this last now delivered with a clear familiarity and knowing nods.
A feature of the tour is guest appearances from familiar Welsh soloists and John Owen Jones duly delivered Bring Him Home from Les Misérables, This Is The Moment from Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde, Love Never Dies and The Music Of The Night from Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera, and Till I Hear You Sing from its 2010 sequel, with an impressively seasoned passion and refulgent grandeur. Regrettably, Mr. Jones had to deal with some intrusive, over-enthusiastic hectoring from an audience member. He did so with commendable professionalism and wit, though it may have affected his concentration and created some careless diction – “my yown” for “my own”, “close your reyes” for “close your eyes” – in subsequent numbers.
Another laudable hallmark of the evening was the readiness to engage individual choir members for solo slots where necessary and all made the most of the opportunity in the musical spotlight.
No doubt a cost-saving measure to the tour was the use, in places, of a backing track by both soloist and choir. It is used, of course, to the detriment of musical flexibility, rigidly inflicting the one interpretation to the song involved, for which, perhaps, no fulsome orchestral blaze can fully compensate. It seemed almost ungrateful to the choir’s pianist, Glian Llwyd, who provided some beautifully sensitive and nuanced accompaniments throughout the evening.
Despite a standing ovation at the end, there was no encore.
Upwards and onwards to their home base of Wrexham for the next show on 29 September.
Photography by Maddie rmstrong.
