Learning curves
When musicians on TV show and tell In being a mentor on Sky Arts’s Anyone
Can Sing, Nicky Spence follows in a long tradition of wellknown musicians who have appeared on TV to provide expertise to those learning pretty much from scratch. Back in 1995, for instance, soprano Lesley Garrett (above) pitched in to help on BBC One’s Jobs for the Girls when Birds of a Feather actresses Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson were tasked with singing ‘Rule, Britannia!’ at an open-air concert.
Rather more serious in ambition were two series of The Choir (BBC Two; 200608), in which conductor Gareth Malone worked with schoolchildren with little or no musical background and, in a few months, trained them to sing in largescale concerts. Two further The Choir series with adults, Unsung Town and Military Wives, soon followed.
The BBC also broadcast Play It Again (2007) and Maestro (2008). The former saw six celebrities take up instruments and perform them in public: comedienne Jo Brand’s path to a date at the Albert Hall was guided by tutors including
Jools Holland. Maestro was a knock-out competition in which the likes of actress Jane Asher, TV presenter Peter Snow and comedienne Sue Perkins learnt to wield the baton under the watchful eye of Sir Roger Norrington. In 2012 came Maestro at the Opera, in which Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, with some expert guidance from Sir Mark Elder, emerged triumphant.