On Sunday 6th August I was invited to see the gala performance of West End At Home - and afterwards was fortunate to be able to interview West End star Earl Carpenter and three members of the young ensemble. The production was a collaboration between West End soloists and over 50 local children. Unfortunately, the production was marred by technical troubles which masked some of the beautiful music they made. The WorkshopsThe West End showcase was the culmination of a week of workshops for young performers. Ranging in ages from 7 to 18 , the production offered young people from Southampton the opportunity to work with West End professionals. The children learnt a wide variety of musical hits and the choreography to compliment them. As there are only two professional theatre schools in Southampton, the majority of the ensemble had little professional training. Therefore the session's were designed to compensate for the variety of experience. During the interval, I spoke to parents of the ensemble, many complained about the cost of the production. However when I asked producer Earl Carpenter about the supposed costs of around £200 he answered well. He pointed out that these productions do cost a lot, and that the technical industry does increase its costs every year, thereby increasing the overall cost of the production. Personally for the sheer quality of the professionals involved with this production, I believe it was worth the cost for parents, especially as the children perform with Earl Carpenter later in the year as part of the Christmas proms. The Soloists | | Chris Holland will soon be in Dirty Dancing |
The ensemble were supported by important soloists from the West End. Earl Carpenter is currently playing the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera. Chris Holland has just finished a two year stint as Macca in We Will Rock You, and is currently rehearsing to join the Dirty Dancing company in September. Anita Louise Combe created the role of Stephanie Mangano in Saturday Night Fever, she performed What Kind of Fool beautifully on the night. Claire Marlow is about to make her West End debut as Swallow in Whistle Down The Wind and Jenna Lee-James is currently playing the lead of Scaramouche in We Will Rock You. All the soloists performed beautifully on the night, with a Acapulco version of I Dreamed A Dream being my personal highlight of the entire performance. Earl Carpenter's performance of Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera was genuinely moving, and Chris Holland showed us why he was joining the Dirty Dancing Cast with a fantastic duet of I've had the time of my life. The Overall PerformanceThe soloists performed some fantastic duets and group numbers from a wide range of musicals. They also worked with the ensemble on such hits as Do-Re-Mi from the Sound of Music, and Supercalifragilistic from Mary Poppins. Although the energy of the performance seemed to lack in the first half, it certainly picked up in the second act. The problem with the performance was mainly technical, the children performed well and were a credit to themselves, and to their teachers. However sitting in the circle, I did not get the full benefit of this. The microphones used to amplify the voices of the soloist's and ensemble did not seem to work properly. The speakers were only trained at the lower circle, who responded to the performance with the noise and celebration that showed they were having fun. The microphones and the speed with which some of the pieces needed to be sung meant that the individual lyrics were reduced to a garbled noise. No better example of this was the performance of Officer Krupke from the West Side Story, the two soloist's Earl Carpenter and Chris Holland were not properly heard over the noise of the orchestra, and as a result the ensemble did not seem sure about when their cues were. Overall, the musical talents of all the performers were let down by technical problems that clearly dominated in the first half. However the second half showed the true quality of all who were involved. I interviewed three members of the ensemble after the performance to get their reaction of how the week went. The production moves to Poole soon where a ensemble will go through similar workshops to create one great super cast. If your child is interested with musical theatre I would recommend getting involved with this program, for despite technical problems, it does offer valuable training and experience which is so important for development of talent. | 
