Sky's Musical Corner - Musical Q&A with Elle Field

 1.       What’s your favourite musical ever?

I have to pick just one? So difficult! Probably Mary Poppins, which is magical on stage, and it’s also more in keeping with the Mary Poppins books. The sets! The songs! The score! All wonderful.

2.            What comes to mind when you hear the word musical?

Songs. Story. Dance. Emotion. MAGIC.

3.             Have you ever seen a musical on the West End or Broadway?

Yes! I live in London, so I always see musicals on the West End, though I’d love to see one on Broadway.

4.            What’s the next musical you want to see?

Aladdin! I’ve been desperate to see it. Now it’s finally come to the West End, I shall be ticking that off my list at some point soon.

5.             Which musicals have you seen live?

Gosh! Let me see if I can remember them all!

Fame, We Will Rock You (four times), The Lion King (three times), Matilda (twice), The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, Les Miserables, Chariots of Fire, Sweet Charity, Sister Act the Musical, Oliver!, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Jersey Boys (twice), Shrek the Musical (twice), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Legally Blonde (twice), Viva Forever, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, Mamma Mia, The Book of Mormon, Spamalot, Avenue Q, The Wizard of Oz, A Chorus Line, Million Dollar Quartet, Blood Brothers, Dreamboats and Petticoats, Thriller Live, Billy Elliot, Wicked (twice), Betty Blue Eyes, Return to the Forbidden Planet, Rock of Ages, Mary Poppins, The Lord of the Rings, Chicago and Evita.

Can you tell I’m a fan? I’ve probably forgotten a lot, too!

6.            What’s your favourite song out of a musical?

Too many, again, to choose just one, but my top five would include: Hello (The Book of Mormon), Anything Can Happen (Mary Poppins), I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You (Evita), When I Grown Up (Matilda) and He Lives in You Reprise (The Lion King).

Hello from The Book of Mormon

7.             Who’s you favourite Musical actress?

I don’t really have a favourite, but Scarlett Strallen is awesome. I saw her as Mary in Mary Poppins, and her performance has always stuck in my head.

8.            Who’s you favourite Musical actor?

Again, I don’t have a favourite, but Alex Gaumond is brilliant. I’ve seen him in Matilda – he played the Trunchbull and was the perfect amount of hilarious, yet terrifying – and I’ve seen him play Freddy Benson in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Nigel Harman was also incredible in Shrek the Musical – I saw him play Lord Farquaad twice.

9.            Best Musical movie you have ever seen?

Across the Universe and Moulin Rouge! Moulin Rouge is a classic, and Across the Universe is brilliant. I’m not the biggest fan of The Beatles, but the songs fit the storyline and the cinematography beautifully.

10.         Which book would you turn into a musical?

Bridget Jones’ Diary. I think they have run workshops in the past to try and make this happen, so I hope they hurry up and work out whatever is delaying this production.

11.          Which musical has the best soundtrack?

Again, it’s too difficult to pick just one, but I’m going to go for We Will Rock You. I love Queen, so the We Will Rock You soundtrack is perfect.

12.         Take your favourite Musical and put together your own dream cast.

Ooh, OK, I said Mary Poppins was my favourite, so we’ll have Scarlett Strallen playing Mary and Gavin Creel can play Bert. Aden Gillett will play George Banks and Rebecca Thornhill will play Winifred Banks. (OK, I’ve picked who performed in it when I saw it – that cast was perfect!)

13.          Who is your favourite Musical composer?

I don’t have a favourite, but Tim Minchin, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Sherman brothers and Alan Menken all deserve big nods.

14.         Which Musical made/makes you cry?

All of them! I tear up at every curtain call.

Elle Field writes coming of age romantic comedies, and is the author of the Arielle Lockley series and Geli Voyante’s Hot or Not. She grew up in Yorkshire, then moved to Scotland to study International Relations and Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews.

Elle now lives in London with her boyfriend and their cat. She’s a massive fan of sunshine, giraffes, musicals, The Killers, Audrey Hepburn movies, playing Scrabble and tea. Oh, and reading, of course!

You can buy Elle’s books here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00CHIC1GE

Visit her website: http://www.ellefield.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter: @ellefie

Like her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellefieldauthor

Sky's Musical Corner - Katey Lovell about her inspiration for The Singalong Society for Singletons

When Simona invited me to write a guest post about my first full length novel The Singalong Society for Singletons (published October 7^th 2016 by Harper Impulse), I was delighted.  Simona and I have similar reading taste and her blog is always full of brilliant recommendations, so I was more than happy to be her guest.

The very first spark of an idea for the novel came in November 2015, and it was as simple as ‘I want to write a book about musicals’.  I’ve loved them since I was a child (just like Mon, the protagonist in the novel, I wanted to fly like Mary Poppins!) and if anything, my passion for them has grown over the years.  Whether it’s watching a live performance, a cinema showing or settling down on a Sunday afternoon with a DVD, musicals have the power to lift my spirits.

Before I wrote a single word, I had the title in my mind. I’ve always adored alliteration (see what I did there?) and it came to me from nowhere – at first it was simply ‘The Singalong Society’ but then to ensure it had a strong romance element I extended it to The Singalong Society for Singletons. 

I then wrote a short synopsis, planning to base each chapter around a different film.  The next task was to decide which musicals were going to be included.  Determined to get a spread of classics, modern favourites, cult movies and nostalgic feel-good films, I set about making a list.  I spoke to readers on social media asking which were their favourite musicals.  I spent hours reminding myself of the themes of each film on my list, so I could tie what the characters go through with what was happening on-screen.  I watched every musical mentioned in the novel at least once, normally twice, as part of my research, making detailed notes to ensure the essence of each musical came across through my writing.  It took a lot of time, but was a necessary part of the writing process (as well as being fun!)

For nine months I lived and breathed musicals. As well as watching them on DVD in every spare moment, I saw a fair few live – Matilda (on Broadway), Chicago, Let It Be, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – and also went to a Singalong screening of Dirty Dancing.  That was an experience…

I’ve had songs from the shows playing on a loop in my head, I’ve been quoting lines from my favourite films without realising it, I’ve been dancing around my living room like I’m Irene Cara in Fame. 

You’d think I’d be all musicalled out by the time I wrote ‘The End’ but to celebrate finishing the project there was only one thing to do… go to the theatre.

Sky's Musical Corner - From Auditions to the Performances

The auditions for CHESS (show for our 30th anniversary) were in January/February. I auditioned together with my mum, we sang I Know Him So Well. We both knew that a main role (only two women) was not going to happen for us, so we wanted to sing the song just once ;).

Nothing happened for a while and then at some point in February we got an email with the conformation. I was a bot disappointed at first, because I didn’t make the pop choir (I haven’t written it down on the audition form, silly me). I’m now part oft he big choir as well as some smaller ones. This is pretty exciting. I also realised that I didn’t have a chance to be in the pop choir, because the sopranos there are clearly stronger than me.

Rehearsals started at the beginning of March with a big kick-off weekend. On the first day there were all the choir people and it was fab so see some familiar faces, as well as some new ones. So the first day we looked at the big choir pieces. ON the Sunday we were a smaller group with some oft he principals and also some smaller choirs.

After that the rehearsals continued to be Wednesdays and Sundays. We didn’t have to be there all the time, because the principals did their scenes. I learned the music pretty fast and was able to sing it by heart at the beginning of May. In mid May we started staging some oft he numbers and we also had to be off book (some weren’t of course). The first song we staged was Story of Chess, we are chess figures in this song and move around on the chess board. This is by far my favourite, I love choreographies like that. In Merano I’m a flower girl ;). In Merchandisers I have to sell things and in all other songs we have our fixed choir positions. In June we also learned some movements fort he other songs and then at the end oft he month we did a run-through both acts. That’s also where we got to spend more time with the principals, which was great. They are all so nice and I think we have a fab group together.

Summer meant a break for us, six weeks of no rehearsals... Of course I still rehearsed at home, I played the music, sang and did the movements. I often also rehearsed with my mum during that break, it’s always so much fun.

Rehearsals started again August 14. And then it got pretty intense with Sunday the whole day and Wednesday evenings. It’s a lot I know, but it makes me happy. The good thing: We started rehearsing at the venue, which is fab for me, only a five minute walk.

Sunday, September 11 we have our first rehearsal with the orchestra, a run through act 1 on Monday and act 2 on Tuesday as tech rehearsals and then two dress rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday. That’s another story though, that’s the get-in-week and I will talk about that on another post.

Opening night is Friday, September 16, I can’t wait!!!