ANNUAL pre-Covid concerts were started by David Pitts, of Minehead, in the huge then-Colston Hall, and St David’s, Cardiff, as highly successful fund-raisers for Cancer Research, writes CJ Rufus.

The third in the post-Covid, necessarily smaller series, filled the Regal Minehead on June 6, and thrilled all concerned.

David’s extraordinary musical expertise, devotion, and wit coached, inspired, and now led the incongruously ‘amateur’ choir and surely part-professional orchestra to high achievement and enjoyment.

The choir, larger than last year, and clearly full of splendid soloists and euphonious ensembles, sang with verve and beauty.

The orchestra, too, was accurate, balanced, expert, grandly gifted - 18 players often sounded like a full orchestra. Solo parts, too, were wonderful.

The support staff, stage, technical, and administrative, were another delight.

The Regal acoustic was at its best. Video projections and lighting entranced.

The programme, an eclectic mix, from classical works via musicals to rock, was itself a work of art, and of careful, thoughtful ordering of what might have been, but was never, a disparate miscellany.

Despite its diversity, the programme flowed apparently naturally, with the help of David’s fluent brief elements of amusing cabaret between many of the pieces.

Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’ began the evening, thrillingly.

The first-half included Pachelbel, Carl Jenkins (with a beautiful cello solo in his ‘Benedictus’), G&S; yet also McBroom, Sigman, Ulvaeus, and Freddie Mercury, plus, a jokey carol with more than 400 audience singing, too (a new tradition?).

Throughout, David Pitts interspersed his fine conducting with that witty and helpful commentary.

He also delivered a serious, heartfelt, and moving essay and appeal for funds for Cancer Research UK (donation buckets and card reader courtesy of the Minehead charity shop), and, importantly, for people to ‘take the test’.

The interval was thus abuzz.

The second-half included a catalogue of well-deserved thanks and tributes by David, too many to list, but all stars.

Choir and orchestra began with a stirring John Williams medley from ‘Jurassic Park’, complete with dinosaurs hunting on the back screen.

Sting’s ‘Fields of Gold’, a Freddie Mercury song, and, since this was the anniversary of D-Day, ‘Requiem for a Soldier’(Kamen) followed, with ‘Band of Brothers’ film extracts on the back screen.

‘Living on a Prayer’ and Adele’s ‘Skyfall’ led to an extra-appreciated medley from ‘Phantom of the Opera’, with nine soloists, and to the last piece of pop/rock, ‘Hot Stuff’.

The packed house then fell just short of an almighty explosion, only because so much energy had already been expended, but exciting encores from the programme, too many to count, were demanded and followed, to great delight and cheering.

For this reviewer, the whole evening was glorious, happy, memorable, and an evening for all ages.

‘The Concert’, thankfully resumed post-Covid, in a bespoke way for West Somerset, is one of which all participants should be proud, and for which we should be grateful.

Through Cancer Research UK, genuine medical advances are happening. Hurrah!

Do mark the next date: ‘The Concert’, May 22, 2027.