London the Musical

The city sings – for the good of its soul

Singalong a Sound of Music fans who have proudly stood up in the aisles dressed as Maria and kept the hills alive with the sound of music rejoice! Ken’s latest plan is to get us Londoners singing. Forget making the tubes run on time, clearly singing is the key to getting the city going. Ken’s dream is obviously to teach the world to sing but he’s making a start with London anyway.

Why make us sing? You are most likely asking.
• “Because singing is fun...
• Because singing is as natural as laughing...
• Because singing is good for heart and soul...
... and how great will it be when thousands of Londoners come together in song?” Ken’s website enthuses.

All together now, Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do! ‘Sing London’ is the festival which is going to get us blasting out a few bars. And it’s everywhere – from Brent Cross Shopping Centre to the British Museum, even in your local library (which is odd). The bottom line is there’s no avoiding it, in case you were thinking, ‘it’s OK, I’ll just keep my head down and leave this singing lark to the rest of London’.

It all sounds so Mary Poppins; if we could all sing like Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke it would be a sweet cockney symphony. The trouble is, not all voices in London are Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Any night down the local karaoke (which has made a disturbing comeback, I notice) reveals that most couldn’t qualify for the local church choir let alone Westminster choral society and some can’t even hit one single note, not one.

But there’s no doubt Londoners do love to sing. You can hear them humming along to their too loud iPod, or rapping badly on the tube. Can’t they keep it to themselves? It’s not that I’m completely anti a rousing communal chorus but if it’s out of tune better in than out. And the biggest problem is most people are blissfully unaware that they are coming across as more E flat than D minor; that their harmonies are more odious than melodious.

Surely the most entertaining part of shows like the X Factor and Pop Idol were the tuneless rejects completely oblivious to the cat strangling sounds they were emanating. The sad (or hilarious) thing about these poor deluded wannabes that music forgot was that they were completely convinced they were destined to be the Take That of tomorrow. They surely proved that, as a whole, we’re a nation whose signing talent isn’t just hidden – it doesn’t exist.

I know from painful, ear-splitting experience that plenty of people, a few unfortunately close to me, really shouldn’t attempt to sing. Sunday mornings spent standing in a church pew, pretending not to know certain family members, are still fresh in my memory. And in case you were wondering, Dad, singing an entire octave above or below what it should be doesn’t help; it only makes your tuneless vocals stand out above everyone else’s. Tone deaf, I’m afraid.

At least the ENO understands, they’re kindly giving away free singing lessons to prevent the whole thing going off-key. If you’re remotely unsure of your musical genius, take my advice and sign up for one of their twenty-minute one-to-ones, please.

To round the whole singing marathon off, there’ll be a great big sing-a-long at the South Bank Centre on July 8th. I, for one, won’t be tuning in to hear the thousands expected join to join in the all-city sing. It’ll be like the last night of the Proms only worse, with plenty of flag waving, patriotism and most of it out of tune. Singing is fun, Ken says. Yes, for those doing the singing, not so much fun for those of us who have to listen to it. Stick to singing in the shower, that’s what I say or, better still, in the bath – under water.

Bringing Rhythm to Town

What do you get when you mix Bollywood with London? A bit of a dance number at Waterloo Station of course. Dancers in new release ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’ (‘Dance Baby Dance’) managed to dodge the capital’s crowds at Tower Bridge and Kensington Palace Gardens too with their perfectly-timed footwork. This film features group choreographed spectacles shimmying through the city that rival the very best scenes in ‘West Side Story’.

Russian Revolution

It’s all a bit Roman Abramovich injecting a spare few million into Chelsea Football Club but wealthy Russian art lover Eugeny Erofeev is stumping up the cash for a sculpture show in Regent’s Park this summer. Among the work on display will be Unus Safardiar’s ‘Feeling Transparent’, which, rather coolly, resembles cut ice. It is hoped the show will become an annual event for sculptors worldwide.

A Bridge Too Far

There’s stiff competition to be the best bridge in London but news that Wandsworth Bridge is to have a £800,000 makeover may elevate it to the realms of star structures such as Tower Bridge and that Millennium one. The design centres on glass ‘flames’, which are computerised to change from purple to turquoise and back again with the tide. Oh-er!

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