Daily Archives: May 9, 2009

Greg Pritchard: counter attack from a counter-tenor!

Posted by Wendy on May 9, 2009 17 comments

gregpritchardThis guy has to be the biggest surprise yet to walk out onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent.

A very nervous young Welshman, Greg Pritchard, presented an image of ‘indie rock’ – something very modern and rebellious – and then…

He opened his mouth and out came the most divine counter-tenor voice and totally stunned the judges and audience. He sang Nessun Dorma - an aria for tenor voice – and even got that ‘high C’ at the end!

There is a very rich repertoire for counter-tenor and I would like to see this young man find a good teacher (if he does not already have one…) and explore this completely – what a find!

The counter-tenor is a unique part of the male vocal range; mostly associated with baroque and medieval music, it is a developed falsetto voice – a male soprano – and has enjoyed a great revival of recognition in the past twenty years.

Famous counter-tenors today include Australian Graham Pushee and Christophe Dumaux. 

Related: Farinelli, Il Castrato

Update Semi-final:

I felt it was totally unfair, and unprofessional of the judges, to place a contestant into the final who required two attempts at their performance. Greg Pritchard gave a unique and thrilling performance but was up against Hollie Steel who broke down in the middle of her performance. She was given a second chance which should have gone no further than to give her a go at finishing what she started. To have chosen Hollie over Greg was blatant favouritism – he got his performance right the first time.

It was unfair to all the contestants.

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.

Tommy Cooper dies on YouTube – would you watch…?

Posted by Wendy on May 9, 2009 No comments

tommycooperThe late, great  Tommy Cooper was a much loved comedian – a big man with an even bigger personality.

Like all good showmen he lived by the motto ‘the show must go on’ and this certainly was the case on April 14 1984 when the great man appeared at the London Palladium despite the fact that he must not have been feeling the best on that night.

During the live broadcast of the show Tommy suffered a fatal heart attack and died on stage – with the audience laughing along assuming it was part of his act, he was known for improvising…

The sad event was being televised live on ITV at the time and since then, out of respect for the much loved man and his family, the footage was never reshown. Now that sad footage has found it’s way onto YouTube and over 50,000 people have viewed it. What do you think – would YOU be bothered…?

In my last post I spoke about personal responsibility in online publishing; when you have something that other people will want to know about what do you do…?

In this case there are no implications for the owners of the footage to consider, no legal consequences (as far as we know) to worry about – but there it comes down to the ‘publish and be damned’ issue. Those who watch it would be doing so mostly out of curiousity – it is being published so why not?…

Tommy died the way he probably thought he always would – on stage with laughter ringing in his ears – probably the first comedian to actually die ‘with laughter’. Just like that!

Copyright © 2007-2012 Cultured Views. All rights reserved.