Concert of Remembrance

by

Jacquimac

Part 5

The first part of the concert was going to involve mainly the boys who would be dressed in WW1 uniforms with a backdrop and props simulating the trenches.

As the theatre would be in darkness except for the stage I suggested that maybe we could show a few slides showing the carnage of the battlefields, and that idea met with a good reception. The theatre manager was going to add sound and lighting effects to give it some impact.

We didn`t do a lot that night except hand out script, songs that were going to sung and get measured for costumes, monday night we would be starting to rehearse seriously.

Me turning up in my new personna didn`t seem to bother anyone except for a few who told me it was about time I started to dress the part that went with my looks. All in all today had been a good day but I knew there would be some trouble and it would start in the next few days everything was going too easy.

A couple of us had seem quite a lot of the old films, I had DVD`s,Cd`s and LP`s of Gracie Fields, Will Hayes, George Formby etc so these could be used to study how the songs were sung by the Stars of those days.

I was given the part of the "Northern Nightingale" or for those who don`t know better known as "Our Gracie" Dame Gracie Fields. Gracie for those who don`t know was not just a film star but a fantastic singer and comediene in her own right, she had the vocal range to sing anything form a comedy song in her own dialiect to opera, she was a world renown star and had taken the UK and US by storm.

The newspapers during WW2 had printed lies about her after she married an Italian/American but she was still taken into the hearts of the UK especially the working class. Gracie came from a working class background and never forgot were she came from.

Julie was given the part of Vera Lynne a singer who we thought at best was mediocre, oh she could sing but she didn`t have much range and her songs seemed a bit monotone. She was known as the "Forces Sweetheart".

Boys parts were the orchestra, a swing band, Bing Crosby and Al Bowly. and the rest dressed as soldiers, sailors and airmen.

The way to start the WW2 half of the concert was causing a slight problem, like the WW1 part we wanted it to make an impact on the audience and cast alike. After a lot of research we finally decided that we all sing "When The Lights Go Out All Over The World " followed by our narrator reciting Winston Churchills " Never Surrender Speech"

There was a huge library songs from that era we could choose from so material wasn`t short, Julie was to sing " We`ll Meet Again",and "White Cliffs of Dover"

As Gracie I was to sing " Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye", "Thing-Ummy-Bob (That's Gonna Win The War)" and "Now Is The Hour" althought the last song was not recorded until 1948 the original Maori has been around a lot longer.

We also had songs for the choir but the choirmistress wasn`t letting us in on those yet as she was trying several songs.

All in all it looked like it was going to be great concert and would be enjoyable for all concerned.

A few comic skits were to added were we had time to spare just to fill in gaps as well as narrations.

And at the end the death toll of WW2 would be told followed by closing prayers.

All we had to do now was put it all together and with the help we had we knew that it was going require a lot of hard work on our part but we were looking forward to it, I knew that we kids were going to learn a lot about the two wars that wasn`t in history books.
We had all seen the news clips of the dead soldiers being driven through Wooten Basset and although we didn`t see the carnage from Afghanistan we knew that what we were about to do was our way of Honouring the Dead, the Veterans and the serving members of the Armed Forces. We wanted to raise as much as we could for the two charities so they could carry on they`re work.

Before we left the producer informed us that because of complexity of the show we would rehearse each part in separate location, one group would use the theatre and the second group the local church hall, the final week of rehearsals we would all rehearse in the theatre as the opening song required the full cast.

One thing we had forgotten but the producer hadn`t was copyright law, as soon as songs and music had been decided he had contacted the copyright holders and had gotten permission for us to the songs at no cost as it was for charity.

There were so many little items we didn`t know about and were glad somebody was managing to deal with them.