Sing-along show tells story of Gareth Malone’s life

After the success of Sing-Along-A-Gareth in 2022 and 2023, choirmaster and broadcaster Gareth Malone is back with the feelgood Sing-Along-A-Gareth: My Life Through Song.

Gareth has chosen some of his favourite songs for the fun-filled show – “that have been the soundtrack to my life” – for audiences to sing along to, accompanied by a band of first-rate musicians.

The tour is set to roll into Cambridge later this month.

On what he enjoys about being out on the road, Gareth says: “I think mostly it’s the moment where your idea for a song comes together in front of the audience and everyone’s working together and the whole audience are singing. That’s the moment that you do it for.

“You don’t do it for being on the bus or for drinking tea in your dressing room – you do it for the hit of being in front of a live audience.

“I much prefer it, honestly, to making television or radio because it’s so instantaneous. It’s indescribable, I love to be on stage – it’s just super fun.”

Featuring a blend of biography and song, Sing-Along-A-Gareth: My Life Through Song presents a mixture of cherished photographs and iconic tunes.

Gareth has curated a song sheet that he hopes audiences will love, from the very first record he ever bought, to party hits that everyone knows and loves.

And in this show, nobody will dare to silence your voice, as audience members are actively encouraged to sing their hearts out!

“It’s the same format [as previous shows],” explains Gareth, whose presenting credits include the BAFTA-award-winning TV series The Choir and the BBC’s Pitch Battle.

“So Sing-Along-A-Gareth: My Life Through Song is my third outing... It’s different from shows I’ve done before, in that the audience are very much a big part of the sound.

“The audience sings, and they really do sing. Not everyone sings – you don’t have to sing if you don’t want to – but there’s a really good noise coming from the audience.

“But I do different songs every time; I don’t think we’re repeating anything in fact from the previous two tours, it’s all new material.

“And this tour I decided to tell a story, so literally it’s the story of my life told through songs that I’ve thought are significant over the last 50 years or so, including my parents meeting.

“So all the way back to them and then up to date with songs that my kids listen to.”

The set-list for this 2024 tour includes songs such as Make You Feel My Love by Adele, Take On Me by A-ha, Proud Mary by Tina Turner, I Want You Back by the Jackson 5, Kiss from a Rose by Seal, and Faith by George Michael.

How did Gareth draw up the list? “It’s partly just… we sit in the pub after our gigs and go ‘Oh, you know what would be good for this?’ and make a long list,” he says.

“And then I whittle it down to songs that I think will sound good when a lot of people are singing them, will be fun to sing – I don’t want anything that’s too challenging.

“I want it to be doable for the audience, and a fun challenge, and songs we can play – nothing too super jazzy or anything – and just things that I’m passionate about really.

“We’re doing 25 gigs on this tour so we’ve got to play them a lot, so we need to really love them.”

Gareth notes that it’s “really lovely” to see people singing their hearts out night after night.

He adds: “The first song we do on this tour is Space Oddity by David Bowie, and the second we start that, the whole audience is singing along.

“It’s a song where everyone shares, everyone has a relationship with that song – and it just happened to be number one on my birthday, when I was born.

“I mean the reissue, not the original version, because I wasn’t born in 1969, I was born in 1975. But you just get this overwhelming noise from the audience, and that’s when we know it works.”

Gareth’s achievements as choirmaster, presenter and populariser of choral music include three number one singles, two BAFTA Awards, and numerous television shows over the last 15 years.

He was also the pioneer of the hugely successful Great British Home Chorus, which saw thousands of people across the country sing with Gareth from their kitchens, bedrooms and sitting rooms during the pandemic.

Catch Gareth Malone’s Sing-Along-A-Gareth: My Life Through Song at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on Friday, 29 November.

Tickets, priced £30.50, are available from cornex.co.uk. For more on Gareth, go to garethmalone.com.