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The Long and Winding Road

Published Thursday 2 July 2009 at 11:20 by Susan Elkin

It’s quite something to see 4,700 children in ten different coloured T shirts seated in colour blocks, especially in the vastness of the 02 Arena, when they all open and twirl umbrellas or brandish torches. The massed singing of 32 Beatles numbers was, perhaps, more exuberant than musical at times but, as usual on an occasion like this, exhilaration won the day.

A slick and calculatedly spectacular show with numbers and items often segueing into each other, The Long and Winding Road loosely tells the Beatles’ story in song and dance, with a handful of spoken commentaries, some by professional adult supporters, including Tony Hirst’s beautifully spoken words of A Hard Day’s Night and the death of Beatles associate Stuart Sutcliffe.

Other noteworthy professional contributions were two songs by Cheryl Fergison, whose rich, sustained contralto singing voice is like warm, dark honey and a lovely number in close harmony by Bill Bailey and Kevin Eldon. I enjoyed the witty, supple, in your face dance interlude by Nemesis too.

But the real point of this concert was to get thousands of children actively involved in performance arts and raising money for Voices for a Better World. Participants, aged nine to 14, came from 120 schools in the south-east, including special schools. Five hundred energetic, well drilled dancers several times filled the front floor arena space and we had good solo work by young dancers and singers who had auditioned. Kwayedza Kureya, an I’d Do Anything finalist and the only young soloist named, sang Let it Be after the enactment of John Lennon’s death - a poised, moving, intensely musical rendering, remarkable for a 14 year old.

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