Sweet music on the menu for X Factor star and chieftain’s heir

She is the mixed-race singer from Liverpool who had been a teenage mother before bursting to stardom on The X Factor. he is the society restaurateur who’s in line to become the 25th Chief of Clanranald and can trace his forebears to the 3rd century.

But, improbable allies though they may sound, Rebecca Ferguson and Ranald Macdonald are standing shoulder to shoulder in a crusade to let musicians perform in pubs and restaurants after they reopen in england on Saturday.

‘We cannot allow musicians to be overlooked,’ Ferguson tells me. ‘every citizen deserves to be able to work.’

The singer has spoken out after learning of the innovative measures which Macdonald is taking at Boisdale, his restaurant in London’s Belgravia which reopens next Wednesday.

‘I believe the precautions Boisdale are putting in place — with Perspex screens separating the band from the public — allow for two things,’ explains Ferguson, who has performed two ten-day residences at the restaurant. ‘First, people to stay in employment, and, secondly, the enjoyment of music by the customer.’

Macdonald, who has lured everyone from Jools holland — the restaurant’s Patron of Music — to Mel C to perform in the past 21 years, is heartened by her support. ‘The guidelines [banning live music] seem to have been rushed through,’ he tells me, pointing out that they mean that ‘recorded music, at a volume that doesn’t cause customers to raise their voices’ is deemed acceptable, while live music — ‘at the same volume’ — is not.

This, he says, is catastrophic for performers. ‘We employ more than 1,000 musicians a year. A lot of quite brilliant musicians are now on Universal Credit.’

his installation of a floorto-ceiling Perspex screen allows vocalists and fellow musicians — socially distanced, of course — to perform without risk to those dining on 28-day aged Buccleuch beef and other Boisdale staples. Ferguson is thrilled. ‘I can’t wait to be back as a performer — or customer,’ she tells me.