The hugely popular Gareth Malone recounts the heart-warming stories and transformations behind the award-winning BBC2 series The Choir
For the first time, Gareth reveals everything he has learned from working with so many groups of memorable people, including the record-breaking Military Wives and latest series of The Choir being shown this Autumn.
Gareth was an unknown Choirmaster when he arrived on British TV screens five years ago. Boyish, irrepressible and determined, Gareth took on a collection of kids from the most unlikely comprehensive and turned them into a talented performing choir.
This was the beginning of a national love affair with a bow-tied and undeniably charming young man, and it was also the start of a national rediscovery of the joy to be found in choirs.
Since then, each series of The Choir has gone on to even more demanding challenges, taking young offenders to Glyndebourne, regenerating disparate and far from affluent communities, and finally in an extraordinarily emotional journey, Gareth took a group of women whose partners were serving in Afghanistan to a Christmas Number One. This Autumn, in a new four-part series, The Choir: Sing While you Work, Gareth will be challenging four new Choirs to compete against each other.
This is his memoir of a period in which he transformed the lives of thousands but also gained a lifetime's worth of experience in human frailty and strength. Written with real joy, emotion and amusement, the twenty chapters each deal with an individual moment – both break-throughs and disasters – or an individual character that has contributed to this extraordinary adventure.
Whether he is explaining the importance of biscuits or the role of the elderly in a community undertaking, remembering the scrappy kid who never quite delivered or the mother who had most to prove this is an incredibly moving journey. It is his adventure… and ours.