Say the word SINGALONG and you conjure images of a smokey London pub and rude choruses to the tune of Colonel Bogey round the piano. Well, it was what we got up during the Blitz, wasn’t it? Keep Calm and Carry On they say but actually it was the middle classes who said that, the working man disappeared down the boozer to grab a pint and belt out #‘Hitler, has only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall…’# with his mates. Because combine it with a laugh and a good group singsong lowers you blood pressure and makes you feel a whole lot better about being bombed by the Luftwaffe – ask any doctor.
Trouble was it is all so, well, trad. Then it turned out we were no longer at war with the Germany plus no-one really wanted to spend time in the pub any more, which had in any case thrown out the piano with the flock wallpaper and sticky carpet in the Nineties. The Singalong looked like a Spitfire in a terminal tailspin, destined to hit the ground like a dart.
Sound of Music Singalong
And so it was until the early Noughties when cinemas started to offer The Sound of Music Singalong. Members of the audience were invited to dress up like the film: the Von Trapp family, nuns or (dammit) Nazis and howl along to their favourite tracks – the singalong had suddenly pulled up and was cool again. From Julie Andrews this quickly segued into The Rocky Horror Picture Show (always an interactive fave), Grease and then no movie with any kind of ditty was safe.
Singing in church
Now, if there is one time of year we want to lose our vocal inhibitions, it’s Christmas. But not all of us are church-goers and suddenly putting on our Sunday best to invoke the Little Town of Bethlehem seems a bit weird. In any case, Yule actually goes back way before Christianity summarily plonked the birth of Christ on it. Scholars now think that Jesus was in fact born in April in what we now call 4 AD. So if 4 AD is the new 0, we are all technically four years younger – Result!
So we are turning our desire for a high spirited knees-up to a different use: the Christmas No.1 Singalong. What is the show? In a nutshell: we take the mickey then you are invited to join in. All the way through and with some of the best vocalists in Britain to lead the way. Just like the Blitz? Maybe. But more of a laugh and I guarantee you will never worry about being bombed by the Luftwaffe ever again.
