The Choir of Man

 

The Choir of Man

by Pete Clemons

The world is not made up of people who think the same as you or feel the same. We are all very different in our moods and mannerisms. We are also different people at different times and the humble pub catered for all.

And all the above is at the heart of the musical The Choir of Man currently running at the Assembly Festival Gardens in Coventry.

The setting for The Choir of Man is a pub called The Jungle. The pub has its own choir that features a multi talented cast of 9 men, each with his own personality type.

And those personalities include a Poet, a Handyman, the Pub Bore, the Hard Man, the Beast, a Romantic, the Maestro, a Joker and the Bar Man. The Bar Man, for example, loves to keep the beer flowing for people at the pub while the Romantic hopelessly keeps swiping on dating apps. The Beast is a bit more dexterous than his first impression gives.

The Poet is generally the narrator, but there's not really a plot. Each of the performers has somewhat of a surface level backstory. Nevertheless you are welcomed into the Jungle where you are served with beer and banter.

Throughout the 90-minute performance, each man gets his chance to perform his own number when he's not backing up another. There's a few rousing group numbers too, and they featured an awful lot of talent.

No doubt, even the average theatre goer would recognise a lot of the music featured here. And towards  the end of the performance there's a sing-a-long of The Proclaimers '500 Miles'.

Other songs performed include 'Somebody to Love' by Queen, '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover' by Paul Simon', 'Under the Bridge' by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, 'Hello' by Adele, Rupert Holmes 'Escape (the Pina Colada song)' along with several others.

Throughout the show, The Poet will pop in for a few timely monologues, mostly reminding the crowd of the loss of gathering spaces like pubs during the pandemic, and how much we all missed them.

There was actually a lot of talk about the freedoms that the pandemic took from us. It also reminded us about theatre and live music being back and how that needs our help right now.

Overall The Choir of Man delivers on so many fronts. It was charismatic, and they had the audience on their feet several times.

The Choir of Man is on it's second run here in Coventry and is now on it's last couple of weeks of that run. Be quick if you intend to see it. It is very worthwhile.