Gareth Malone brings new tour to York's Grand Opera House, Leeds City Varieties and Sheffield City Hall

Gareth Malone’s upcoming tour might provide something of a solution for ticket holders who want to make their own voices heard - nobody can turn up not expecting the people next to them to sing, because that’s the whole point.

Sing-Along-A-Gareth-Two is coming to venues across the UK this autumn and, as the name suggests, audiences will be encouraged to belt out the words alongside Malone.

As for the aforementioned debate, Malone says: “I think that really relates to music theatre, and I completely understand. Tickets for musical theatre are so expensive and you go to see, let’s say Beverley Knight, in the starring role in a musical. You don’t want to be obliterated by somebody who’s had one too many sitting next to you. So I have some sympathy with that, but my show isn’t that. My show, it’s about the sing-along and generally people come with their choirs or they aspire to be in a choir and they want to do some singing and that’s fine.”

Malone will play guitar and bass, on stage alongside fellow musicians and choirs picked from local areas. He also creates songs on the spot and helps the audience to write their own too.

The general song list will be available to download in advance for those wanting to learn them, whether people are attending with a choir, friends or solo. While Malone is still putting together the song list, people might be hearing the likes of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, We Are The Champions by Queen, Everybody Hurts by R.E.M and Simply The Best by Tina Turner.

In Yorkshire, he will visit the Grand Opera House in York, City Varieties in Leeds and Sheffield City Hall next month.

“I’m actually very excited about York because, for reasons I can’t explain, I have been to York possibly 10 times, but I’ve only ever been dropped off at the station,” he says.

The City Varieties is a venue he’s visited before and considers to be beautiful.

“I love the historic ones. I love the Victorian theatres, those sorts of buildings. I think my show works really well (in them). Because it is a ‘show’. It’s interactive, I’m talking to the audience, people shouting things out, suggestions,” he says. “It’s not a dry, theatrical experience where you’re just sitting in the dark watching.”

Malone’s achievements as choirmaster and presenter of choral music include three number one singles and popular television shows over the last 15 years, including iterations of The Choir, such the BAFTA-winning ‘Boys Don’t Sing’ version and the ‘Military Wives’.

He also pioneered the Great British Home Chorus, getting thousands of people across the country to sing with him from their kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms during the pandemic.

That feeling of getting people singing together is still a joy for Malone, 47, of London.

“When you’ve got a great song and a lot of people singing it, it’s quite thrilling. It’s quite thrilling for the audience to be surrounded by everyone singing, that’s a really great sound. It is great for us on stage to hear. The show is not a one-way street. It requires the audience to really make it happen. So that’s exciting.

“It’s like a bit of a celebration. It feels like after the years of COVID, where we couldn’t get together, to be finally allowed to be in a room having fun and breathing the same air and singing, it’s really good and nothing else does that thing in the way that singing does. It really sort of unites people and you leave feeling the endorphins flowing and it puts everyone in a good mood.”

The Military Wives know all about the restorative benefits of singing, of course. Back in 2010, Nicky Clarke and Caroline Jopp, both spouses of soldiers, decided to set up a choir at the Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire to provide some respite to families while their loved ones fought in Afghanistan.

Inspired by the ladies at Catterick, Malone set up a version at Chivenor Barracks in Devon which featured in 2011 show The Choir: Military Wives. The programme culminated in the opening performance for the Royal British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall that year, where the choir performed Wherever You Are, a love poem compiled from letters written between the women and their absent husbands and partners, set to music by composer Paul Mealor.

The single was Christmas number one in 2011 and Malone, who studied at the Royal Academy of Music, went on to be executive producer on their subsequent British number one album.

Speaking of the Military Wives legacy, he says: “The lady who wrote to me, Nicky Clarke, was based at Catterick. (It was) amazing, that whole thing went beyond me and her, there’s now more than 2,000 women singing every week in Military Wives choirs. I just feel like I helped to make people aware of something that I already knew was great - singing in a choir is really fun.”

Over the years, he says, they have “let a lot of people know that, actually, it doesn’t have to be hard work. It can be hard, it can be whatever you want it to be and it’s kind of for everyone”.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is another area of debate among artists and audiences, with some believing that it thwarts human creativity. Malone, though, thinks it might provide an amusing twist to one section of his show.

“I was thinking about things to do on the tour and one of my favourites from last time was the songwriting section, where we write a song based on something to do with a local town. So Robin of Sherwood in Nottingham or John Logie Baird in Scotland,” says Malone.

With AI, he adds, “ you can actually get some maybe not the perfect results, but some initial lyrics to work on really quickly.

“You literally just type that: ‘Write me a song about…’ And then you put in whatever it is you want, and you get something passable. And I just thought it might be funny and quite interesting, and quite sort of timely - lots of people are worried about AI. My mum in particular is very stressed about it, computers taking over the world.

“I thought, there are harmless applications for AI that can be very useful. We’re going to give it a go.”

Gareth Malone will head to the Grand Opera House in York on Sunday, November 5; City Varieties in Leeds on Monday, November 6; and Sheffield City Hall on Sunday, November 19. Tickets available from https://www.garethmalone.com