Lighthouse Big Sing 2024: Les Musicals at Lighthouse Poole Review
DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW
Reviewed by Maddie Reynolds
We arrived at the Lighthouse Poole, at 3.40 and there was plenty of parking across the road in the car parks. We collected our tickets from the box office and then headed to get some drinks before entering the concert hall. The choir sat in the hall and the audience was on the balcony. We were in row AA so right at the front of the balcony.
As we took our seats so did the choir, we were then told what it was all about. Bournemouth Symphony Chorus many of their members live in Poole, Bournemouth, and Christchurch, but they also have members who live further out, they come together to sing. They rehearse and perform many of their concerts at the Lighthouse Poole.
This was a workshop event that anyone could go to for which you had to book tickets. The day started at 9,30 am and they performed at 4.00 pm. You don’t have to be in a choir, you can just like to sing. You attend the all-day workshop and then you perform to an audience, it was led by the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus.
My daughter and I are a massive fan of the musicals, so we were looking forward to this. The conductor Gavin Carr came onto the platform and told us there were over 800 members today who had joined the Big Sing workshop, he explained that they were going to sing medleys from 4 different musicals.
The participants were all sat in the parts they sang and spread out around the hall with the band just underneath and to the side of the balcony. This consisted of a pianist and a drummer who played with enthusiasm throughout the show and built up the volume during the big numbers.
The performance started with songs from Phantom of the Opera, the harmonies in this were beautiful and they captured the songs with how they used each part and went from quiet to really building up slowly in the songs to the really powerful parts, it was breath taking at points. This musical is a really beautiful story and some of the songs are hard to sing but they really did this justice. You wouldn’t have thought they had just learned these songs in a day.
Next, they took us on a journey to West Side Story, this again the parts and the harmonies they used added to the pieces, they did a fab job of adding in all the parts and doing the loud and quiet parts of the songs, and also adding in the noises and keeping up with the fast pace of the songs.
The 3rd Medley was Mamma Mia this had everyone in the balcony singing along and dancing in their seats, it was a great medley and very lively.
The final musical was Les Miserable again. This is a very powerful story and the choir did an amazing job of taking us through the musical, with some powerful singing. Some of these songs are very fast and hard to sing, but nothing seemed to phase them. During this performance, they all started to march which really added to the feel of their performance and they had someone stand and wave a big red flag around the room.
We thoroughly enjoyed this show and would recommend going to see it, such an amazing thing to do getting a group of singers together. As a singer myself it really does help me and singing is something that has supported me throughout my life. This is something I will look out for next year as would love to take part.
I would rate it 5/5 it was a fun afternoon of really feel-good musicals and I loved how they had just all come together today to sing. They do this each year to bring people together to sing but you can join them through an auditon process and sing with them each week.
This was just on today at the Lighthouse Big Sing 2024: Les Musicals – Lighthouse (lighthousepoole.co.uk)
Tickets were £6
Rating: 5/5
Lighthouse Big Sing 2024: Les Musicals