October 24 and 25

BROS Musical Productions are back in action with The Show Goes On, a musical compilation show put together by Caroline Bennett.

Promising “dazzling performances, powerful music and plenty of surprises in a celebration of everything we love about live theatre,” it will be performed on October 24 and 25 at 3pm and 7pm in Felpham Village Hall with tickets available on https://www.ticketsource.com/bros.

It comes as the company counts down to the reopening next spring of its traditional home, the renamed and refurbished Regis Centre, under its new name the Alexandra Arts Centre.

“The Show Goes On is a musical theatre show based on songs from all sorts of different shows, some really well known like Guys And Dolls and also some a lot less well known,” Caroline says.

The key thing for Caroline, when creating the show, was to know first who she had available in her cast: “You need to tailor it to who you have got.”

It's also a question of drawing on her own knowledge: “I teach musical theatre at the university. I teach one-to-one singing on the university course, and I also run my own musical theatre school. I was brought up on musical theatre, watching all the old MGM musicals as a three-year old. Singin’ In The Rain was my version of CBeebies!

“You need to think about what the cast want to do as well and also what the younger members of the cast want to do. You've got to find a balance and you've also got to find what the audience wants to hear. We've got some Carole King in there as well. It's about finding a number of songs that have got a bit of pop culture around them.”

It then becomes a question of deciding which order to do them in: “Generally I think you need something that is really exciting and driven at the beginning and a big emotional hook halfway through. It's not a show that has a narrative but you don't want to have eight big ballads in a row just as you don't want to have four hard-hitting ensemble numbers in a row. You want to give it a shape and you need to give people a chance to recover from the big ones! I tend to put all the music together as a Spotify playlist and then listen to it and then just start thinking whether it flows well and whether I like it and then hope that the audience agrees!

“I don't just want to put songs in there that people know. There are some fantastic musicals out there. We've got a song from Percy Jackson which is a really great song. This is a great opportunity to expose some of these lesser-known songs to an audience.”

In a way it's tougher than doing a book show, a big known musical: “In a way a book show is much easier because it's all written down for you already. You've got the blueprint and you just need to interpret the blueprint. With this one I am directing it and also musical directing it. I'm putting it together and teaching them the music but it's really coming together nicely.”

All with the prospect of a return for the company to the Alexandra next year: “I pretty much grew up there, and I can't wait to be back there. Both my parents were involved in shows, and I just spent so much time there as a kid, either in shows or backstage. It's just such a fantastic venue, and just being on the stage there has got such magic.”