24Hr Variety Show

Happy birthday to BATS who are 40 years old this year and decided to celebrate, as they put it, ‘in a big way!’ And they weren’t joking, as they chose to put on a 24 hour marathon variety show, because they are ‘a little bit bonkers,’ Not that I’d disagree, but their words, not mine!! This was also partly to help raise funds for their chosen charity, Young Minds, So, my other half and I popped along to their chosen venue, St Andrews Church Biggleswade to see the first 3 hours of this herculean production, where even I had been scheduled stage time to give a few minutes explaining the benefits of NODA!

Produced by Kay Young and Directed by Ollie Elkin with Musical Directors, Tim Gardner and Hannah Ridley and Choreographed by Katie Connolly they certainly put together an ambitious programme to cover the 1440 minutes of this show! And the whole cast, of which there were over fifty were kitted out in new purple T-Shirts proclaiming the Big Birthday Celebration, which was also live streamed, and each hour was sponsored by either an individual with connections to the society or a local company. So, hats off to the management for a very well organised and polished show, which apparently stayed more or less on time for the whole 24 hours.

Being in a church there was no set as such, it was just performed in front of a cordoned off Knave with props and furniture brought on as required under the stage management of Spice New-Szarvas with a stage crew of Tay Rolph and Ben Thompson, with technical support being provided by Dave Maltby. Then of course there was a necessary army of technicians and Front of House to back all this and cover each other for the long hours ahead.  

We started with a eclectic mix of opening songs from a variety of different musicals, performed by Ollie and the whole cast and led by their founding member Fran Sharp. This was followed by their legacy members in a trip down memory lane of songs from past musicals in which they had performed. Young Lucy Taylor demonstrated her fine voice and gave a glimpse of the likely future of BATS. We had skits interspersed between songs, some worth a good belly laugh and some an amusing groan, but all great fun. And then following my five minutes on NODA we had songs from Dear Evan Hansen and Rent, Moulin Rouge and Shrek.

Thoroughly enjoyable evening of nostalgia and fund raising, and when we left the cast were still full of enthusiasm, how the hours told on them after that, only they can say, but they had yet to go throughout the night and into the next day with according to the programme: Karaoke, an hour and half of panto time, and even a scavenger hunt and of course lots more singing and dancing and even some Shakespeare. In fact name a musical and it was probably represented somewhere in the show.

So well done BATS, as it now says on their Facebook page, ‘We did it.. and boy was it a ride!’ And already various videos have appeared on social media and I look forward to the highlights appearing on their website in due course. And they have raised over £1150 for Young Minda so far! As I write this.

I expect all the above are well tucked up in bed as I write this having earned a very long rest and my respect for even contemplating such a marathon, let alone actually completing it!

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