Oh! What a Night

On Friday 12th March 2021, 52 Rotary members, partners and guests enjoyed a wonderful online Musical Evening when Luke McCall gave us a live performance of some of his favourite songs. 

Luke started off the evening with ‘Music of the Night’ from Phantom of the Opera.It was lovely that in between songs Luke answered questions from the audience; we learned that he started singing from an early age in a Welsh Male Choir but began taking it more seriously from the age of 16. His dream was to play the Phantom and looking ahead he would relish the opportunity of playing Shrek in Shrek the Musical and Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar. He played the Phantom for 2 years, 2016-2018 and still holds the record of the youngest person ever to play both roles - the Phantom and Jean Valjean. 

Up to the outbreak of the pandemic Luke was performing in Les Misérables. Adhering to social distancing rules a ‘concert version’ of the show staged 10 performances over the 2020 Christmas period and included stars like Alfie Boe and Michael Ball. Over the lockdown Luke joined “Welsh of the West End”, a group of artists giving online performances. 

When performing in Les Misérables before the lockdown, Luke told us they worked 6 days with 8 shows a week, 1 on Monday & Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday, 1 Thursday & Friday, 2 on Saturday with Sunday off, and each show lasting 3 hours. 

Other songs of the evening we enjoyed were:- Stars (Les Misérables), Some enchanted evening (South Pacific), Till I hear you sing (Love never dies), On the street where you live (My Fair Lady), Who I’d be (Shrek the Musical) Tell My Father (Civil War – an American musical) To Excess, I’d rather be sailing and You’ll be back (Hamilton) Luke finished his performance singing 'Bring him home', a song by the character Jean Valjean Luke plays in the musical Les Misérables. 

The evening was a real joy and at the same time a fantastic fundraiser. With ticket and raffle ticket sales we raised £850 on the night. A massive ‘Thank You’ to Sean and Susy who arranged and hosted this excellent evening and to all those who took part.