Showcase 2025

It has now become a Showcase tradition to wow us with an evening of songs from theatre, film and beyond – and tonight was no exception!

The show opened with a well-planned medley from & Juliet, featuring the physicality of Lewis Boyd with Hannah Lomas, and the Showcase ensemble in fine voice as always.   The stage pictures made for a colourful evening with changes of costume for nearly every entrance.

Cannot help but mention the chorus again for their rendition of “The Long and Winding Road”, which brought back happy memories!

Act One also saw Clare Clayton leading the chorus in a well-choreographed and well-sung Abba Medley.

A medley from Blood Brothers was not the easiest of sequences to perform, especially when taken out of context, but the soloists Laura Cross, Laura Murray, Lynsey Bailley, Craig Young, Laurence Aitken and Matt Fullerton made a very memorable short scene from this West End success.

The penultimate number in Act One “Somebody To Love” was given quality treatment by Arlene Tonner and the Showcase ensemble, before we moved to the Interval warm-up number from Les Miserables “One Day More”. John Whelan was in fine voice launching this so-well-known  piece from the award winning Les Mis, and was ably followed by Lewis Boyd, Ava Smith, Revathi Eswaran, Ross MacTaggart, David Mack, Denis Harley, and Clare Clayton, who, together with the chorus brought Act One to a climax!

Act Two opened with a Pick Of The Pops selection and moved on to a selection from “The Movies” including a medley from Wicked (unfortunately without any flying!) but including the memorable voices of Jennifer McIntosh, Heather Gore, Jemma Farnham and Emily Cristopher.

Lewis Boyd found the energy to entertain us with “Rock DJ”, and the section was concluded with a pleasant rendition by Ellie Moran, of “Don’t Rain On My Parade” a Barbra Streisand hit from Funny Girl in 1964.

The next section comprised four numbers  from “40 Years Ago Today” – who knew? My favourites in this section  were undoubtably “I Don’t Like Mondays”  fronted by Ross MacTaggart, obviously very comfortable with the vocal range in this number. Quickly following on from Ross’s success we were royally entertained by the rich vocal tones of Heather Gore with “Drive”, before ending the section with an excellent performance of the classic “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Andy McGarry & Chorus.

The Finale section brought the tempo down somewhat with “God Only Knows” sung by Craig Young & Chorus,  a final choral item “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and then the poignant “Love & Mercy” given first class treatment by Ross MacTaggart & the Showcase Chorus.

All in all, a fine evening of a totally eclectic choice of music, which the audience thoroughly enjoyed. 

Also an announcement was made informing that a pre-show total of money raised for Macmillan Cancer Support was a staggering £369,000. Well done Showcase for raising this amount for a very worthy cause.

Best wishes for your future fund-raising!

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