Open Centre

Peter Whitehead's Singing City diary

Meet Peter Whitehead, aged 51 and the manager of a furniture re-use project in Nuneaton. Peter says he has little singing experience but is loud and enthusiastic. He did have one season with the National Youth Theatre when he was 17 and performed on stage alongside Daniel Day-Lewis. "Where would I be now if I had followed the dream?! All of my life I have been promising myself that I would try to see whether the loud, bass voice I have could be developed into something that just doesn't only make children's heads turn when I sing in church."

Peter will be writing a diary of his journey through the Singing City.

The Performance

Sunday, 15 July dawns cold & wet, but does it dampen our spirits? No, we would walk through fire & brimstone to strut our stuff the show must go on. We warm up in the Open Centre, a little over the top with operatic & choir boy styles but with some performances sounding better that the normal singing! A quick car ride over to the Memorial Park and then we spend an hour and a half mud-sliding whilst waiting for our 15 minutes of fame.

The stage is narrower and deeper than expected with the band at our backs which makes hearing ourselves very difficult and I think the sound problems continued into the audience and over the radio waves. Still, the audience are very appreciative and even Billy no-mates here manages to get four supporters in the crowd, daughter Lorna & family having arrived earlier than expected from Sheffield in preparation for our holiday to Wales the following day. (I’d like to think that they had arrived early especially with me in mind but apparently the 1yr old’s sleeping times were either mid morning or late afternoon!!)

The performance passes quickly, even with one encore and we are left, feeling a little empty inside, to wander out and merge with the crowd, each of us going our separate ways. It feels for me as though we are returning to the lives that we once led, a little bit richer for the experience, a little bit poorer for its loss. And for that I must thank the rest of the choir (but especially Ilona, Jane & Siobhan) for their inspiration, their generosity, their support and their friendship. I’ve had a ball and long may we continue as a group. 

My apologies if I have offended anyone through these ramblings. No offence was intended (but to Coral, I would say that when I looked you really were underneath that table but who’s to say whether you were the worse for drink or not?! It’s for us to know and for my readers to only wonder!)

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