BEHIND THE SCENES: Michael Bruce - In Concert

"I don't know how interesting I am as me!" says Michael Bruce. One would think that an award-winning 25-year-old musical theatre composer with his own concert in the West End might have a sizeable ego and be desperate to take centre stage, but he's adamant that's not the case. "I'm more about the work."

And yet he's got to do a bit of spiel to introduce the acts who'll be singing his songs. "I don't want to talk too much," he confesses. He can't claim to be entirely unaccustomed to public speaking, though; when his show Ed picked up a gong at Edinburgh this summer, he had to make a speech then. "I was so nervous. When I got up on stage, I started saying all kinds of random stuff, but people seemed to like it."

People like his work too. He entered and won the Notes for the Stage competition run by Notes from New York and The Stage, following which his work has been performed in Christmas in New York at the Lyric Theatre and at the Trafalgar Studios. And now he's having his songs performed by some top artists at the Apollo on November 1.

"It's coming around really quick," he says. "We've been talking about it for a long time. I'm still kind of in a daze about it all."

He admits to some nerves about acting as compere for his own music, but at the moment he's concentrating on getting the arrangements done. "I've got 26 songs to do - 13 in each act. I figure because it's two and a half weeks, if I can finish all the arrangements a week before. It's a big old thing, and we've got a big old band - guitars, drums, bass, percussion."

And the line-up is big as well - it includes LeAnne Jones, Daniel Boys, Mark Evans, Julie Atherton, Helena Blackman, Alex Jessop, Sarah Lark, Clare Foster, Paul Spicer and Finty Williams. Neil Eckersley, the show's co-producer, promises more names to come as well.

"We'll have two new performers to announce next week," he says, but he's not letting anything else slip yet.

He's very proud of Bruce, and is equally excited to be presenting the show."Michael is, without doubt, the most talented and exciting young British composer with whom we've worked. His work exudes an intelligence that belies his years and we're delighted to be presenting his West End concert debut with a host of fantastic singers."

Fancy finding out for yourself? The concert is at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, at 7.30pm on Sunday November 1.

 

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