All singing, all dancing

If you want to be inspired, this is as good as it gets.

All singing, all dancing

As I mentioned in a previous post, Wiltshire Creative, which is the theatre, music and arts organisation serving Salisbury, the nearest town to our village, is putting on an ambitious outdoor project this summer in Salisbury’s Churchill Gardens, a beautiful park with a great view of the stunning cathedral.

It’s an open air rendition of William Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, and the part of Ariel, the mercurial, mischievous, endearing and scheming spirit, is played not by an actor but by a chorus made up of members of Salisbury’s residents who are preforming the part as volunteers. And I am fortunate to be one of them.

I joined because I love singing, especially in harmony with other singers, and it seems like a great opportunity to do a lot of that. But what I particularly love about this chorus is that we are singing Shakespeare songs, which make a very refreshing change from the usual repertoire of carols, hymns and the Hallelujah Chorus.

As it turns out there’s going to be a lot more to it than singing songs between soliloquies and other scenes, and dialogue performed by a troup of professional actors, and quite how we are going to successfully combine singing, acting, dancing, walking and playing musical instruments all at the same time is, frankly, beyond me. But it seems to be coming together.

Fortunately it’s not my problem. The onerous task of knitting the whole thing into a cosmic unity falls to our wonderful musical director and brilliant teacher, Kate Edgar and our director, Gareth Machin, and so far I see no reason not trust that they will make a good fist of it.

The supporting team at Wiltshire Creative, plus choreographer Khiley Williams (one of the most generally enthusiastic people I’ve ever met), really are inspiring.

But most inspiring of all is the material created by the immortal bard himself, William Shakespeare, otherwise affectionately known as "Our William."

There is no doubt that by diving more deeply into “the stuff this play is made on” (apologies to the man) has made me fall in love with Shakespeare all over again, just like when I was a kid in school doing O and A levels in English Literature.

If you want to know literature at it’s best, it doesn’t get any better than Our William!

Even if you don’t live in or near Salisbury you can get tickets and come on down. It’ll be a lovely day out for all the family. For more information, visit https://www.wiltshirecreative.co.uk/events/the-tempest