More amateur musicians hoping to make the grade…
HOST CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN AND JUDGES MIKA AND LANG LANG DISCUSS THE NEW SERIES OF MUSICAL COMPETITION SHOW THE PIANO. BY
Tonight, Channel 4, 9pm
THE concept behind the hugely successful first season of Channel 4 show The Piano was simple.
Amateur pianists played in major train stations, without knowing they were being secretly watched by singer-songwriter Mika and Chinese piano virtuoso Lang Lang.
The secret is very much out now – anyone who spotted presenter Claudia Winkleman in a train station would surely know what was going on.
So how could the second season work and keep that magic alive?
“We were a little worried, weren’t we – all three of us,” Claudia, 52, admits. “Because what was so beautiful about the show was [this concept of ] what happens if people are playing and they don’t know anyone’s watching?
“That is so unbelievably poetic, I had never heard of anything like it.”
This time round, Claudia says she expected people to “come in ballgowns, walk in and say under their breath ‘Hello, Mika’.”
Luckily, that wasn’t the case – which The Traitors presenter credits to the subtlety of the camera crew who managed to disappear “into the walls”, meaning the amateurs would forget what was going on and just play.
“We were worried something would change, in terms of the people – their intention, their ambitions from season one to season two, because they know we’re hidden away somewhere and we’re listening to them,” agrees Grace Kelly singer Mika, who co-presented the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022.
Yet the show managed to keep a love of music at its core. Mika, 40, tells the story of an NHS nurse who recently retired and spent a big chunk of her pension buying a grand piano, knocking out walls to fit it into her house.
Mika, remembers: “She sits down – she’s so nervous that her piece lasts about 42 seconds. Super short and it wasn’t very good.
“And yet, that just shows the passion she has – the fact that she goes and buys that, she dreamt her whole life of having a piano.
“She’s not a prodigy, but the power of telling that story in itself, for me is magic.”
One positive thing about the second series is it’s not a secret that
Mika and Lang Lang are waiting in the wings, so they don’t have to stay hidden.
“I see this as a good advantage, because if there’s somebody we feel is special, we actually go out and see them, to encourage them to do better,” Lang Lang, 41, explains.
Claudia recounts a moment in an Edinburgh train station when a teenager came out who was “young and cool, he’s like 17, good looking, and all like ‘whatever”’.
He “banged out” a Chopin piece, then Mika appeared and Claudia says: “I’ll never know what you said to him, but Mika whispered something to him and he did it again – and it was like a totally different piece of music.”
All three can agree on one thing in this show: you never know what you’re going to get.
A visually impaired 13-year-old girl called Lucy won the first season, impressing the judges with her rendition of Debussy’s Arabesque – but it’s not always about advanced classical music.
never know what’s going to move you,” Mika notes. “Sometimes someone can come and play something really, really complicated – a piece by, let’s say Chopin or something. And technically, it’s all there. But it doesn’t provoke emotion, neither in me nor in him [Lang Lang].
“And then someone comes in, plays something with the most simple triadic chords and really simple arpeggios, and sing something very simple – and for some reason, it clicks, everything aligns and it makes people cry.
“Figuring out or finding out why that is, is endless. It’s just so complicated and so simple at the same time.”
Mika describes it as “magic that you can’t quite put your finger on” – but even the audience can feel it, as they gather to listen in train stations all over the UK.
When one girl played, Claudia remembers seeing a man “in floods of tears”, adding: “I assumed it was her dad, so I went up to him and I went, ‘You must be incredibly proud’, when in fact, he didn’t know her at all, and was just moved by her performance.
Lang Lang says: “You’ll never know what they are going to play – what type of music. [The way] they look, very often that doesn’t mean [that’s] their style” – and the show puts the spotlight on a diverse array of people in a range of cities.
“For me, for all of us, probably one of the most amazing things about this project is that it’s all over the UK,” Mika says.
“So often shows that have music in them are very London-centric, right? What’s so beautiful about this is you realise there is a different musical cultural soul which is very distinct in each region and niche city – and you really feel it.”
All three are visibly thrilled at the prospect of returning for another series, with a Christmas special also in the works – particularly as they didn’t quite predict the success of the first series, which became Channel 4’s best-rating new format since 2017, with each episode averaging 2.7 million viewers.
Mika says he was “quite amazed” by the reception it got. “Heart“We warming, more than anything, with this little beautiful project shot as a documentary. We had no idea, we knew nothing – the freedom we were given was amazing.”
He refers to the success of the first series as “quite a tender surprise, which is rare”. While Lang Lang says he had “some kind of expectation” that this would be “very different than the regular piano shows on television from the past, or a piano competition”, he “didn’t expect such a success”. So, after spending so much time around brilliant pianists on both series, what has Claudia picked up about music? “I know nothing,” she deadpans. While Lang Lang and Mika refuse to accept that, Mika adds with a laugh: “She’s the worst singer you’ve ever heard,” with Claudia admitting: “I’m not allowed to sing Happy Birthday.”
There is a different musical cultural soul which is very distinct in each region and niche city – and you really feel it
Mika on
The Piano
The team at South Essex Wildlife Hospital are nothing if not dedicated and this week they draw on all their skills to help an orphaned fawn and a grey seal pup.
As adorable as their charges are, their predicaments are serious. Lily is a newborn fawn who was abandoned by her mother before the instinct to suckle kicked in.
She joins Rosie, the first orphaned fawn of the season, and the hope is that Rosie will be able to show Lily how to feed from the bottle.
Meanwhile, Lois the seal pup is malnourished, refusing to eat since being attacked by a dog.