The Choir of Man celebrates music and community down to the smallest levels. Instruments, folk songs, and friendships are given equal weight as the drinks poured and the pubs inhabited.

It is hard not to feel welcomed in, warm and at home, when watching The Choir of Man. This new touring production which landed at Mayflower Theatre last night, spinning out from an Edinburgh Fringe show in 2017 and a stint in the West End which ended at the start of this year, sees the pub "The Jungle” brought to life on-stage. The cozy delights are immediately familiar to anyone who frequents a small-town local public house. Before the show starts, and during the interval, audience members are invited on-stage to partake in a pint or two, poured directly from the show’s set. The show’s cast mingle around you, engaging in idle chat and light banter. If not for a missing four wall backing onto one of the largest theatres in the UK, it’s easy to forget you’re standing on stage, and sick back into familiar relief. This casual audience engagement and fourth-wall-breaking is part and parcel of The Choir of Man, whose modus operandi is all about atmosphere and audience connection moreso than any pesky “narrative” or throughline.

Characters exist here - though archetypes are a better way of describing them. “Poet”, “Romantic”, “Hardman”, “Joker”, are all given names but are credited by their personality traits. “Poet” delivers a series of spoken word monologues, delving into the lives of each character and why the pub brings them together. The increasingly fleshed out patrons are there, however, to remind you of people of similar ilk that you know. The specificity of where they grew up and what their childhood was like (small towns far-flung across the UK, all united with spending time with mum, dad, grandparents), done so that you can apply the same casual declarations of platonic love to your friends and family. The fact that the monologues are spoken with the same cadence and casual corniness as a Morrisons advert — “we’re a nation of runners, gunners, have-funners” — is beside the point. At the end of the day, is there anything more inherently British than engaging with national over-sentimentality?

The songs are the key-factor that makes the whole show sing, as the ensemble belts out classic hit after hit, sometimes changing up instrumentally and others performing the rock ballads exactly as intended. These songs are enjoyable set-pieces, where each member of the ensemble is given a chance to shine at different points throughout. The Act One finale of “Chandalier” (the second show to feature this transition after last month’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical) offers a unique assembly, the chorus starting with merely one voice before building up to a dramatic and powerful ensemble performance, and then building back down. This construction and deconstruction served as a unique makeup, elevating a song I usually don’t care for into a showstopper. 

This song was later revisited in a goosebump-inducing moment at the end of the show. The fourth-wall is fully lifted as the director of music enters stage and introduces four choirs from across Hampshire joining the Choir of Man in performing Chandalier, this time the defining moment of the show as a whole. This was a beautiful celebration of local talent, and a perfect example of why theatre like this matters. 

The Choir of Man celebrates music and community down to the smallest levels. Instruments, folk songs, and friendships are given equal weight as the drinks poured and the pubs given love, which is a perfect comparison. Much focus is drawn toward how these places are the “people’s front room”, something I could not agree with more. Shouting out local pubs across the country, encouraging the audience to have a drink on them. I can’t see anything more fitting.