Dear reader, it's been a whole day and night since we took our final bows for this summer and I'm not sure I've managed to catch my breath yet. Here at KTB Music Theatre Chorus, we've just performed our 2026 summer concert series "Songs From The Musicals", and we were completely blown away and touched by the audience reaction.
This weekend, we faced down a heatwave and the World Cup to bring our musical magic to three audiences, and we loved every minute of it! The show, as the oft-repeated saying goes, must go on. Especially when we're all having this much fun. This isn't a blog post any more. It's a novel-length love letter. Grab your snacks and a cup of tea.
From Thursday's dress rehearsal with our amazing live band, to the final bows of the final show on Saturday night, our extended time together as a chorus was a rollercoaster of emotions. We had the stresses, of course, at band/dress rehearsal - missed cues, band parts needing to be untangled on the fly, and technical issues while calibrating the sound system. But far outweighing all of that was the incredible joy that comes from making music as a group, and that endorphin rush just kept building up through our three performances on the Chorley Theatre stage.
Every single audience we had was wonderful. Here's a little thing about being on stage: there is essentially a big dark void in front of you most of the time because the stage lights are strong enough to block out a lot of what's behind them. Any bit of light out there in the seats appears to be eerily floating in mid-air. We aimed to create a 'wall of sound' projecting from the stage, and each performance we received a wall of sound back in applause and cheering, for which we are all so grateful. Special shout-out to our family-filled matinee audience for bringing your energy and love of music. I heard we even had some guests who dressed up for the occasion, and we were also honoured to receive a visit from a tiny wooden version of Freddie Mercury, who was obviously very pleased with the stunning solo vocals in "Somebody to Love" from We Will Rock You.
Here's just some of the rave reviews:
"One musical theatre banger after another."
"A train of amazing soloists."
"A masterclass of choral and musical theatre singing."
"Absolutely fabulous."
"The best one yet."
The most-repeated feedback we had was how much we all looked like we were having fun, and supporting each other. We had to be told in dress rehearsal to stop whooping and cheering so loudly after each soloist, because it was painful for everyone with a headset! Thankfully, Amanda reminded us all of the BSL way to cheer, which was just as well because every single soloist who made the trip down to the front was phenomenal. Amanda: you're a superstar, and we miss you when you're not working with us!
We were mournfully putting our music folders into the giant collection boxes at Saturday's final performance, talking about how there had been so many amazing songs in this block that we didn't want to let go of. I simply can't go through all of the songs - there's 26 of them. I can tell you that in terms of collective excitement over songs going well, "Oh Happy Day" (Sister Act 2) without our music folders was a moment of pure musical bliss led by an incredible solo, and "Stampede" (The Lion King) went down so well that the bar staff got to hear it after the show. We were genuinely all a bit scared of that one when Katy handed out the music. Including Katy.
Something we loved was the way that the audience seamlessly followed along with us in the mood changes - "Tomorrow" (Annie) straight into "I'm Still Standing" (Elton John, covered in Sing) opened the concert, and that was just the first of our emotional-whiplash moments. Watching the front row (because that's all I could see) switch from bopping along with our stunning soloists to numbers like “Come Alive” (The Greatest Showman) to sitting transfixed or swaying slightly in our gentler numbers was honestly really touching. "Beauty and the Beast" made us all have to fight back tears so we could come in at the right point. "What Was I Made For?" from Barbie, and "Hushabye Mountain" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang were our main 'breather' choral-style moments (could anyone see my right leg shaking during WWIMF? It's always the right one...). Another fantastic soloist-led number, "Any Dream Will Do" (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat), felt like it was floating.
"The Bells of Notre Dame" (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) opened the second half with brilliantly compelling narration and singing from our soloists, and a couple of the top sopranos really went for it with That Terrifying End Note! Our soloist for "Let It Go" (Frozen) now has her very own well-deserved fan club. "Satisfied" has set a bar for lyric memorisation and delivery that we are more than a little intimidated by. "Haus of Holbein" (Six) was already a perfectly-performed chaos-fest and then someone in the pit found the air-horn sound button to make it even better. You all witnessed the creation of a new chorus meme.
Congratulations to all of our first-time soloists for stepping up and showing us your fabulous voices. Our mother-daughter team singing "Practically Perfect" (Mary Poppins) had us all beaming ear-to-ear: our young guest star held her own on that stage and nailed it - well done, do come back again, and please join us properly the second you turn sixteen. (Katy, that means you've got many more years to run this thing... you're well and truly stuck with us now.)
If you came to the theatre to watch us after reading these blog posts, firstly, a huge thank you from all of us, and secondly... you might think I'm in the habit of exaggerating for comedic effect about the amount of chaos we tend to create, as we have been told repeatedly that musically-speaking, we are very tight, professional, and well-controlled on stage. I simply must disavow you of that notion as far as the rest of it goes, since you weren't there at the dress rehearsal, or backstage with us during the shows. For the hunts for cooler air, for toilet paper, for water and snacks. Photoshoots. Wardrobe malfunctions, costume changes, and mattifying powder everywhere. Crying, laughing, realising that 'six degrees of separation' goes down to maybe two or three in the local performing arts world. And the oversharing. Lots and lots of oversharing. We're basically a huge family at this point.
We also cannot say thank you enough to the team at Chorley Theatre for not only continuing to host us, but for putting on a fantastic spread in between the Saturday shows, keeping the air con running, and generally taking such great care of everyone in that building. Thank you to everyone involved with setup and takedown - hours of hard, sweaty work bookending an already tiring run of shows, in a heatwave week where a lot of us had very little sleep. Thank you to everyone who publicised the show, everyone who took the time to tell us what you enjoyed, and everyone who joined in with us to give your amazing, positive energy to the massive loop we had going.
Thank you to everyone on the tech team, the absolutely incredible band, and everyone at KTB Music for all the intense behind-the-scenes work on the musical side of things, and especially (don't you dare edit this bit out, KTB, or I'll hide your sweets) thank you, from the bottom of all of our hearts, to Katy Bradley. You're beyond special to all of us, and we're sure we only know the tip of the iceberg of work you put on yourself to pull this off (and what we do know was more than enough already). We hope we did justice to your creative vision for this concert, and we're all looking forward to working with you on whatever's coming next.
If you're reading this and want to get involved, now is the perfect time to come along and see what we're all about. Our next rehearsal will take place on 9 July in the Chorley Theatre Studio, at 19:30. Drop us an email if you want more details!
Nothing quite compares to the feeling of accomplishment that comes from creating moments of joy for hundreds of people. That's what it's all about, isn't it, at the end of the day? No matter what is going on in the world outside, we can always make space for joy, and love, and air horns. Ooh, ja!
Written by Aeryn Isherwood
