Sacred space ideal for starry night

WEST End singer and producer Mike Sterling is used to the big production values of the theatre world. However, for his next performance, he wants to bring people’s attention to the beauty of the church on their doorstep.

With that in mind, he has arranged A Sacred Night with the Phantom, which takes place at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shiplake next Saturday.

Mike, who clocked up more than 1,000 performances as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, as well as appearing as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables and Juan Perón in Evita, will be joined by opera singer Anthony Stuart Lloyd and musical singer Natasha Kemball.

He says churches are the perfect setting for music.

“What started it was, I always love churches anyway and I love singing in churches, the acoustics are amazing, but coupled with the incredible history of architecture within all of that, you can only dream of creating anything like that these days.

“If you go into a church and use amplification there’s very little colour you need to add because it’s very soulful.

“Someone told me they’d gone to a church and they’d gone, ‘Wow, I’d forgotten how beautiful this building is’. You don’t have to build a backdrop for a show like that, so we kind of light that up. It’s just a hub of the community.

“I spoke to the warden, Wendy, and I said, ‘what do you think about it?’ and she said ‘oh, it would be lovely’, so the wheels were in motion.

“I spoke to some of my friends like Anthony, Tasha and Toby Cruse. It really is a very sacred venue. I do A Night with the Phantom all over the world and I thought we’ll have some sacred music, we’ll have musical theatre, we’ll have opera.”

Originally from Glenamman, near Carmarthen in Wales, Mike moved to Shiplake in 2018. In the following autumn, he staged a show at the Kenton Theatre.

“I was quite passionate about the Kenton, I wanted to do Stars of the West End here which I did with Duncan Waugh and West End musicians, my friends and performers and so forth and it grew from there.

“Vince Hill was another great friend of mine, god bless him. We were close and all the events I did, Vince came to every one.

“Very often he’d come up and at the Kenton, he got up from his chair and sang Edelweiss and reduced the audience to a pulp.”

Mike introduced Hambleden resident Sir Tim Rice to his musical director, Duncan Waugh.

“Duncan has been my musical director for 30 years now, he is a great guy.

“It was actually me that got him the job with Sir Tim 20-odd years ago. I was asked to do this thing in Monaco, which was the first one of An Audience with Sir Tim Rice. I turned up and I was asked, ‘who do you want to work with as the musical director?’ and I went ‘Duncan Waugh’, and Tim said ‘yeah, that’s fine’, but I had a contract then I had to do so I couldn’t go. But Duncan stayed and he’s been there for 20-odd years.

“He’s a wonderful musical director. I know Sir Tim feels very lucky to have him, he’s phenomenal.”

Five years ago, during the coronavirus lockdown, Mike and Duncan released a charity single, a cover of Mariah Carey’s song, Hero, to raise funds for a girl called Evie Hodgson. Evie, from Whitby in North Yorkshire, had been diagnosed with severe aplastic anaemia.

“Duncan got the musicians together remotely and created the song and I did a series of online concerts. They found a stem-cell donor and now she goes to school, she’s 13 years old and she’s medically cured.

“Duncan has been very active right the way through with stuff that I’ve done, as has Toby Cruse, my musical director.”

Mike has made great friendships working in the West End. “I’ve known Alfie Boe for 30 years. I did the Royal Albert Hall back in 1996 with Shirley Bassey, Eric Clapton, Barry Manilow, Michael Flatley and Alfie, who wasn’t discovered then, now we all know his name.

“It was 500 voices, Royal Albert Hall organ, 25 imperial trumpeters, a 52-piece brass band, a 32-piece orchestra and I had to sing Sullivan’s Lost Chord with them.

“I remember in the back room, in the bar, my friend Geoff Eales was on piano, he’s a wonderful pianist. Shirley was there and Julia Migenes-Johnson, the famous opera singer, Alfie and myself were all there singing in the bar.

“Stephen Fry was there, Nigel Hawthorne was around then and Richard Wilson and I shared a dressing room with those guys.

“I supported Engelbert Humperdinck at the Palladium and I stepped in for Russell Watson, Russell was in Spain and couldn’t get back.

“I worked with Colm Wilkinson in the 10th and 25th Les Mis anniversaries at the Royal Albert Hall and the O2. Wayne Sleep, we did High Society together and in fact I danced with Wayne, we had to do the big Vaudeville routine on She’s Got That Thing and I had to learn how to tap dance in three weeks.

“Anthony Stuart Lloyd is a big baritone, he’s 6’ 8”, my body shakes when he’s next to me, his voice is phenomenal. We’ll do The Pearl Fishers, that’s our little party piece together.

“Tasha did Love Never Dies in Drury Lane for a special weekend of concerts and she also did How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

“It’s a good mixed bag of stuff and some nice finales with all the voices together.”

Mike has settled into life in Shiplake.

“I love walking over to the shop, getting a paper and saying hello to people. It’s really how I grew up. Mrs Jenkins, who lived on the corner, ‘hello Michael, isn’t it well’, all that kind of thing, ‘do you want to come in for a cuppa? I’ve just baked some Victoria sponge, do you want a piece?’

“You go back and Mrs Jenkins is still there, good grief, she must be 94 now, she’s still there, doing the same things.

“Churches are just incredible structures and the great thing as well is it’s local. I do my rehearsal and I can come back home and have a cup of tea.”

l A Sacred Night with the Phantom is at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Church Lane, Shiplake, on Saturday, August 30 at 7pm (doors open at 6.15pm). Tickets cost £30 and refreshments are available. For more information, email nightwiththephantom@mail.co.uk