It is April 2022 and I am standing in the middle of the stage at Cadogan Hall in London. As the pianist plays a plucky staccato intro, it dawns on me that I am about to sing the West Side Story classic I Feel Pretty, with choreography, in front of a packed audience, alongside 200 gay men.
This was my first time performing with the London Gay Men’s Chorus (LGMC) – Europe’s largest gay choir. I first saw them perform years earlier in Soho, where they sang Bridge Over Troubled Water at a vigil for the Pulse nightclub shooting in Florida in 2016. After making it through the pandemic, the chorus’s years-long waiting list and months of rehearsals, I was under the bright stage lights, trying to remember the first line of the song and thinking: “what have I got myself into?”
In some ways, the LGMC came into my life at the perfect time. I had recently gone freelance and I missed the upsides of having colleagues: gossip, after-work drinks and trivial office grudges. Looking back to my first rehearsal, when I had to wear a name tag to identify myself, I couldn’t have predicted how many friends I would make, often with people I wouldn’t have encountered in my social circle. One of my choir besties, Bradley, was raised as a Mormon in Utah. Our upbringings were different, but being two gay guys who love to sing the high notes transcends cultural barriers. On the gossip front, there were petty rivalries and microscandals worthy of a Ryan Murphy TV drama – it’s a gay choir, after all.
When I joined the choir, my biggest fear wasn’t the singing, but putting myself out there. After spending most of the pandemic staring at a screen, I had become jaded by the cynicism that underpins so many online interactions, where being seen to care about anything is “cringe”. But it turns out that once you have performed a fully choreographed version of Spice Up Your Life – assembled on the stage in a Geri Halliwell-inspired union jack formation – that fear rapidly disappears.
Once I abandoned my cringe complex, it suddenly became much more fun to live out my Glee Club fantasy. Over the past four years, I’ve performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall and Alexandra Palace. I marched in the 2022 parade marking 50 years of London Pride. I have travelled to Italy to sing in a Pitch Perfect-style convention with hundreds of queer choirs from across the world. (Yes, this is a real thing.) I have been part of a 200-person rainbow Pride flag on the stage. These moments have not only helped me to feel less self-conscious, but they have also taught me that the things that bring us joy are never frivolous – even camp show tunes and sparkles.
Last April, the LGMC gathered in Soho – just a few streets away from where I first heard them perform. We sang Erasure’s queer anthem A Little Respect, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Admiral Duncan pub bombing. It was a testament to the power of being seen – and heard – for who you really are. As a small part of something much bigger, that is how joining a gay choir has made me feel. And I am reminded of that every time I step on to the stage, wearing a ridiculous glittery costume and once again thinking: “what have I got myself into?”
