h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the radio cast of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and Bluebottle have in common? They've all performed at Southampton's Mayflower Theatre (previously The Empire Theatre and Gaumont Theatre), the 3rd largest theatre in the UK. Well, I'll be performing tonight as part of a show to celebrate the re-opening of the Mayflower Theatre following refurbishment.
The last time I was in the Mayflower was summer 2012, when Peregrin, who worked there, and I saw 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show Live!' there, the last time I saw him before his sudden death a few weeks later. So it will be mixed emotions. We're only there to perform two short songs and then provide backing vocals for the very last song in a 'let's see how many people we can fit on the stage for the finale' way.
The star of the show is Joe McElderberry, who is famous for being the worst ever X-Factor winner, the one who was so unbelievably bad everyone decided to go out of their way to buy Rage Against the Machines' 'Killing in The Name' in protest instead.

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BB, break a leg.

This sounds wonderful. I don't suppose you could take along a videographer, could you? That would be so cool for .

They weren't even letting anyone take photographs inside the actual theatre at yesterday's rehearsal. Anyway, our choir's only on for about 10 minutes, singing two songs (Coldplay's 'Fix You', which is listed in Johnny Sharp's book 'Crap Lyrics' for having a truly terrible chorus as well as Imagine Dragons' 'On Top of the World' which I expect to appear in the revised edition) and backing vocals on a song I don't know that's the finale, on which we have to sing 'O o o o, o o o o, o o o, o o o, o o o this is me' a lot while the 'star' sings the actual words. The 'star' wasn't at the rehearsal yesterday so the orchestra played the song without him.

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Sounds wonderful!

The show went well. It was the opening gala to celebrate the £7.5million (approx. $10million/USD) refurbishment of the theatre, which if you remember was the one where earlier this year a performance of 'Titanic: The Musical' was sunk when the set collapsed: A87909132. The night consisted of alternating between professional acts that will be appearing soon at the theatre in the near future, so the Welsh National Opera were there, the Royal Ballet, the Barely Methodical Troupe of Experimental Acrobats straight from the Edinburgh Festival (they were certainly impressive), West End and Broadway stars alternating with local acts, so extracts from youth productions of 'Shrek: The Musical' and 'Les Mis' and lots more we didn't get to see.
For the first half of the show we were allowed to watch from the Upper Balcony (which takes 84 steps to get to as the sign at the bottom of the staircase proudly pointed out). There were far too many speeches thanking the sponsors, the architects, the legal department and so on and so forth ad nausea by lots of different people, until it got to the point where if I heard the phrase 'it isn't merely a refurbishment, it is a regeneration for the next generation' just one more time… (As far as I could tell they'd put new chairs in and some low-level lighting to help people see where their seats are and read their programmes. They also said how they'd changed the wall colour from turquoise to '11 different shades of red' however when all the lights are turned off and the whole place looks black except the stage, you can't tell the difference. They'd also upgraded the lighting rigs and other technical stuff, and moved the orchestra under the stage. The speeches were so long that though the whole show (which started at 7pm) was due to end at 9pm, that was the time the interval started.
For the second half we had to vacate the seats and stand about in the foyer for 45 minutes or so, before walking out the theatre, down the alley and into our star dressing room – the theatre's unique indoor/outdoor space which is commonly called the lorry loading bay. We had a skip filled with the old broken chairs and cushions that had been refurbished, as well as the old exit signs. We then eventually went on the back of the stage during a speech, there were about 170 of us in our combined choir so we barely took up any room at all on the stage. After being introduced as 'workplace choirs where people come to sing and perform, regardless of talent' we sang our two songs, 'Fix You' and 'On Top of the World' and left the stage.
After that we spent another 20 minutes waiting while Bobby Davro told some jokes as he is starring in this year's panto here along with, em, Joe McElderberry, em, a reality show winner, em, who kept saying 'em' several times, em, in every sentence, em. He only has one song (presumably his talent show career didn't stretch to a B-side), so after he sang that he sang a couple of other people's. While he was on the front of stage 'singing' we lined up behind the black curtain behind him in time for the finale song, along with the various youth choirs so there were a few hundred people in total. This was the song I didn't know, with the lead vocal being taken by Jacqueline Hughes at the front, who of course was singing to the audience and not to us behind her so I only caught an odd word.
It turns out you don't need to know a song to sing it to 2,500 people, or at least do what I did which was know when to sing 'o o o o, o o o o, o o o, o o o, this is me' about 3 times, know when to step left and step right in time to the music when the tempo increases, know when to clap along with the music when it increases more, when to stand perfectly still for the quiet bit and know when to punch the air for the last word, in this case 'me'.
So when my wife asked me when I got home what song we sang at the end, I told her that I think it is a song about someone called Bruce who is brave, with a lot of 'o o o's in the chorus. She gave me a look and said, 'Is it 'This is Me' from 'The Greatest Showman'?' to which I replied 'I don't know as I've not seen 'The Greatest Showman' but if the showman's name is Bruce then probably.' (The family often go to see films during the day during the school holidays when tickets are cheap, but I'm usually working) She gave me another look, and asked me to explain further. So I replied the lyrics of the chorus seemed to be 'I am brave, I am Bruce, I am [where?/when?/who?/how?] I'm meant to be [something, something, something, something etc and finally] o o o o, o o o o, o o o, o o o, this is me'. Turns out the lyrics are actually 'I am brave, I am bruised', and it isn't a song about Bruce Willis after all.
Still, the performance finished a mere 95 minutes late and I managed to get home just before midnight.

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Or Bruce Wayne. There just aren't enough songs all about Batman.


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Wow, what a performance indeed... Well done for getting through it successfully

Glad you got to see some of the show as well

What a charming introduction to the choir

It irritates me so much when speeches go on longer than their allotted time - people should have sympathy for the audience (and rehearse better beforehand...) That's terrible that it overran by more than an hour and a half... Glad you got home safely, and I hope you're not too tired today...

"He only has one song (presumably his talent show career didn't stretch to a B-side)"



Glad you were able to resolve the Bruce issue, but yes it may have been improved with lyrics about Batman

for getting through that lot. Sounds like you and the choir were the most professional of the lot.

The song finale sounded wonderful....

This could be edited to make an interesting entry reflecting the culture of the UK.

It could also be edited for .

Many of both the audience and performers were children, so having it overrun so long was really unforgiveable. Surely in the 21st Century you don't need to actually give a speech in person, just bung it on the page instead.

Curiously the host gave a long speech at the start about the importance of knowing the audience, and then did a Frank Spencer impersonation which went down like a lead balloon. Frank is a character on sitcom 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em', which ended 40 years ago. The children in the theatre won't get the reference. Their parents won't get the reference. (Curiously enough, the writer who created 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em' is from the Isle of Wight). This was followed by jokes like 'C, E-flat and G go into a bar, but the bartender says, "Sorry, but we don't serve minors".' Which again is not really for children.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way Bob, but I'm not putting my name to anything linking Joe McElderberry with Culture. Nope. No way, not ever.

I s'pose I could bung it into something for as soon as I think up a suitable word beginning with B

Incidentally, changing the paint colour from turquoise to red doesn't count as a regeneration. If in 'Doctor Who' they announced there'd be a regeneration and all that happened was Peter Capaldi dyed his hair red, fans would make it perfectly clear that that isn't a regeneration.

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