NBS 2011!

So you may already have seen that Naked Boys Singing is making a return to the London stage.

 

Anyone who knows me will know that I had such a wonderful time working on this charming little show over the past couple of years.  Well, I'm delighted to say that I shall be returning to the show for its 2011 run at the New Players Theatre, soon to be rebranded as the Charing Cross Theatre.

 

The show will run at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and is located under the Arches just off Villiers Street in Charing Cross.

 

We're in rehearsals for it now.  We started last week, with five brand new boys, and three old friends of the show, and we're opening on Friday this week.  That's not a long time at all to put this beast together.  It's easy to underestimate the piece, and say, oh, it's just a small show, but there you'd be wrong.  There is a lot of choreography - some of it tricksy (all brilliantly put together by Andrew Wright) and an awful lot of harmony work to learn, so less than two weeks doesn't give us much time to play.

 

Stupidly, I also told our new Musical Director, Jeremy Powell, that I sang the middle harmony line last time round.  I've never said anything so stupid in my life.  I don't know what came over me.  I sang the bottom line.  Throughout.  So now, I've found myself having to re-learn the show from scratch. Stupido!

 

I'm really looking forward to doing Naked Boys Singing again.  It's a very interesting piece fro a psychological point of view.  Not only for the audience, but for us in the cast as well.

 

Nudity is still an issue in our society.  It shouldn't be, but it is.  After al, it's our most natural state, but it still causes giggles, embarrassment, problems of all kinds.

 

Our show confronts that, head on, and says to the audience, look, go on, it's ok to stare, it's ok to be naked.  We've all got a naked body, and I love the fact that in Naked Boys Singing, we get the chance to reassure the audience that everyone is different, and flawed, and that we should celebrate those differences and flaws, and be proud.

 

The original lineup of Naked Boys bonded so incredibly well.  The nudity aspect of the show was something that we were all prepared for, but nevertheless, it IS still a big challenge, and it really brought us very close together indeed. (We lost a lot of boundaries and hang ups along the way, and I think it really helped us all to grow as people, as well as as performers.)  I have no doubt that the new team will go through a very similar experience.  I know that as soon as I agreed to do the show the first time around, the knowledge that quite soon I was going to be getting up in front of an audience with no clothes on, was ever-present, from waking to sleeping every day.  I know that some of our new boys are going through the same trepidations, and that's only natural, but I also know that they've got a brilliant time ahead of them.

 

Long may it last!

 

Last Wednesday, on only day three of rehearsals, we had a Naked photo shoot, for publicising the show.  A bit of a baptism by fire for those who are new to the team, (creatives as well as cast!), but Sheila Burnett has taken some wonderful shots of us, and made us all look very nice indeed.  I'll be posting some of them on the NBS page of this site very soon, but until then, here is a little taster:

 

So as you can see, it's all done very tastefully!

 

In other news, I had a lovely day in Thaxted at Ben's parents' house on Sunday.  My mum, sister, nephew and one of my nieces were there too, in only the second inter-family meeting between mine and Ben's relations, which is crazy, considering we've been together for eight and a half years!

 

The purpose of the visit was to get together and sing old songs from our childhood: the kind of songs that get handed down through the generations, and that no one really remembers learning.  It was all for a taster of a possible new documentary on the subject that Ben has been asked to present, so we were all being interviewed and filmed while we were singing.  Let's hope it gets picked up, as it would be an amazing opportunity for Ben, and a fascinating subject for a program.

 

It was lovely to get together and sing with my family.  Music has always been such a a big part of my life, and the sing-songs we used to have as children are probably the reason I do what I do now, so I'm very grateful for them.

 

My sister Sam and I were interviewed together, and ended up singing a bit from Phantom of the Opera.  Cheesy, maybe, but we used to love singing it together as children, and it was the first time we had sung it it over 20 years!  It was a real nostalgia trip, and I love every minute of it, cheesy or not.  So there!

 

Well, I have harmonies, and new dance routines to learn.  As the Dance Captain on the show, it's my responsibility to be really on it in rehearsals, but at my age, I find my head gets full quite easily, and bits of information then start dribbling out of my ears!

 

So this is me signing off!

 

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