What did you do last Saturday afternoon? Did you pootle around Fore Street? Have a coffee and a brie and bacon sandwich in the County Hotel? Pop into Ladbrookes to take up odds of 20-1 that Alan Titchmarsh would be the next Prime Minister? 

Well, if you did any of those things, I’m sure you had a lovely time. But all of those activities are things that you could have done any weekend. It’s shame if you missed out on the something that you could only have done on that particular afternoon, and that is to go to the matinee of The Sound of Musicals at the Queens Hall. And I’m not just saying that because I was in it. 

What’s that? You don’t like musicals? Well, fair enough, please move along, nothing to see here. The rest of this missive will mean nothing to you. Go on, off you go to Ladbrookes or The County, and I wish you well. But we can never be friends I’m afraid. Not real friends, because I like talking about musicals and I fear I would bore you to tears most days with my tales of Les Mis Steps and why I never need to take a hair drier to rehearsals. 

The curtain went down for the last time on the show that we put on to celebrate the 90th anniversary of one of Hexham’s finest institutions, HASS (Hexham Amateur Stage Society). I prattled on about my reasons for being part of it in my last blog, so I’ll not repeat myself here. But I will say that all the reasons that I listed there came true as we stood on the stage on Saturday afternoon and sang lustily through all the songs that we had been rehearsing over the previous nine months. 

There are some feelings that I suspect can never be accurately understood by anyone unless they have actually experienced it themselves. Some of these activities are important – childbirth, going into space, for example – and some much less so, like scoring a goal at Wembley, or hearing a song that you wrote being played on the radio. I suspect they provoke all sorts of emotional responses that I will never be able to empathise with. 

But I can add a couple of my own examples to the bottom of this list. They’re not as grand as any that I mentioned but they are genuine, and difficult to explain. 

Firstly, there is the feeling of singing in a chorus in front of an audience and hearing all the different harmonies around you. The best way I can describe it is to say that it feels like your are on an exhilarating ride that you are helping to drive along by playing your own part in creating the sound. We finished the concert with “One Day More” from Les Miserables. I’ve sat at this computer now for an hour, with a Thesaurus at my side, and still the only way I can think of to try and convey the feeling of it all “clicking” is to say it was brilliant. It was also moving, exciting, nerve wracking, intoxicating, dramatic, sensational, mind-boggling and abstemious (?) (No, sorry, I lost my page in the Thesaurus and that last one slipped in unexpectedly. Please ignore it). 

The other feeling that I couldn’t convey with any accuracy is the emotion that we feel after the performance is over. 

For weeks, we learn to put the show into practice, memorising the songs, singing them at every opportunity (I startled a couple in what I thought was a quiet bookshop with my rendition of “People Will Say We’re in Love” while they were contemplating the romantic fiction section), and some of us even managed to learn some moves. So it was a lot of effort, over many weeks, building up to a climax on stage and just like that – it was gone. 

The day after the last show, which is always on a Saturday, is known by some as “Flat Sunday.” Even a new series of The Larkins, which is the kind of Sunday night TV drama designed to make you feel good about the world, couldn’t completely eradicate the tinge of sadness that comes as a result of knowing that you won’t be singing those songs again anywhere other than in the shower. And even then, everyone else in the chorus won’t be singing with you. Unless you have a very big shower, which I haven’t. 

But before I slip further into what is known by non-believers as “luvvyism” I will say this. There is always another show coming up over the hill, and the whole process will start again. So it’s never the end of the road, its more like the changing of seasons. 

And are you wondering why I don’t need to take a hair drier to rehearsals? Well, as a bass/baritone, I sit next to the sopranos. One full-blooded chorus from them of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and my hair’s dry again. 

Thanks, ladies. 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will be on at the Queen’s Hall, Hexham in May 2023. See you there, if you’re not in Ladbrookes again.