Three Dorset friends have been invited to sing their way to notoriety at London’s Excel arena on November 2nd in the National auditions of ITVs Britain’s Got Talent (BGT).
Stoborough’s David Marshall and Poole’s Bob Lloyd and Ian Catley, all in their 70s, formed the a cappella trio ‘Crocks Alive (just)’ over a year ago, having met in the community choir ‘Rising Voices Wessex’ some five years previously. All sing bass.
Ian says, “We all love singing, have fairly sympathetic musical tastes, and each has that rather detached sense of humour that comes with having lived a long life!”
The trio perform an eclectic range including, ‘You raise me up’, ‘You are the new day’, ‘All through the night’, ‘I bought me a cat’, ‘The anthem from Chess’, and Carole King’s ‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’.
They perform across the region where invited. Ian says, ‘Whenever we entertain an audience, we encourage people to sing - but not ALL the time! Singing is life affirming’
They perform across the region where invited. Ian says, ‘Whenever we entertain an audience, we encourage people to sing - but not ALL the time! Singing is life affirming’
For the BGT audition, Crocks Alive (just) will sing Bobby Mansfield’s British chart hit ‘Come back my love’, in an arrangement by the trio’s trained musician David Marshall. David concluded his military career as Director of Music at the Coldstream Guards.
‘We formed ‘Crocks’ said Ian, ‘simply because we enjoy harmonising together, and to drink tea in ‘potsful’ when we rehearse around David’s piano or keyboard, and to swap stories from our respective careers and life generally, but people seem to want to book us!’
The three, who boast collective experience of some 220 years, will soon see if the audition judging panel also wish to book the band into the 2020 series of Britain’s Got Talent, but should they not, Ian Catley says, “we’ll be just as happy meeting for Thursday rehearsal in Stoborough when the kettle will be on as usual”.