Lucy Kay

January 2015

ON the first night of the UK tour, Lucy Kay plunged down a flight of stairs on stage. Fortunately, this was during the rehearsal. And fortunately, thanks to what she calls “Christmas padding”, she wasn’t hurt.

“I did a Beyoncé. I walked down the top few steps, tripped on my dress and fell all the way to the bottom,” laughs the 25-year-old, who is on a tour with Britain’s Got Talent winners Collabro.

“Although I did carry on singing.”

She adds: “Christmas was good to me so I kind of fell on my flab.”

It went to plan in the concert... because she changed to singing after she’d descended the stairs.

“I can’t multi-task, apparently,” giggles the soprano, who is singing highlights from her debut album, Fantasia, which reached No. 18 in the UK chart and topped the Classical chart.

The tour opened in Carlisle on Monday.

“I got a standing ovation,” she says, sounding surprised, despite experiencing the same from the Britain’s Got Talent judges on last year’s show.

“I wasn’t expecting it because it’s Collabro’s tour and they’re not there to see my warbly opera,” says Lucy, a former Cantamus choirgirl who grew up in Sutton-in-Ashefield and Kirkby-in-Ashfield, where her mum still lives.

Since the show, on which millions watched her come second to the theatrical boy band, she has performed for celebrities like Elton John, Kate Moss and Samuel L Jackson, as well as royalty.

The tour, which comes to the Royal Concert Hall tonight, sees her sings two arias in the first half, another two after the break, then join “the boys” for a duet.

Exchanging the spotlight numerous times is not the usual structure for a concert but Lucy isn’t billed as the support act (that’s Philippa Hanna), rather a special guest.

“Some people have asked what time I’m on stage because they want to watch me then leave but it’s not like that,” she laughs.

Apart from touring the Far East with Cantamus while a schoolgirl, this is her first proper tour.

It’s a long time to be on the road, so what will she do during her downtime?

“I like to chat. And eat. The chef on the tour is amazing. I’ve been told off so many times because I keep going back for seconds.

“The sweet stuff is so nice. I’ve got a bit of a pouch going on, which isn’t ideal when you’re wearing a tight dress.”

Her essential items (apart from a knife and fork), are “girly things”.

She says: “My make-up, dresses, hair curlers, my phone is my bloodline.... and my iPod, with lots of heavy metal music on it. I was listening to a bit of Killswitch Engage in the gym this morning.”

The metal fan, whose first concerts were at Rock City, dreams of playing Download Festival. Or even just going would be nice, but commitments don’t allow her to make such plans. Her family will be at the show tonight; mum, dad, nan and sister. As well as her boyfriend, David.

“He’s my tour manager. I don’t think he could cope without me for seven weeks,” she laughs.

Lucy was back in Kirkby-in-Ashfield for two weeks at Christmas.

“The furthest I went was Mansfield. I went shopping but I didn’t go partying.”

Was she recognised?

“People tend to stare, as if they’re wondering ‘is that her?’ Very rarely does anyone approach me. But then they’ll ask me on Facebook ‘was that you?’ So I spent a lot of my time in the café at Asda in Mansfield being stared at.”


Lucy Kay joins Collabro at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday, January 30, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £19.50 to £38.50, from the venue, call 0115 989 5555 or go to trch.co.uk.

Saint Raymond

October 2014

HE’S already played a dozen shows but Callum Burrows admits “it hasn’t quite sunk in yet”.

The tour supporting Ed Sheeran, whose latest album X is Britain’s biggest-selling of the year so far, will run to a total of 37 dates across the UK and Europe, keeping Burrows, aka Saint Raymond, busy until the end of November.

The 19-year-old from Bramcote is facing crowds of up to 20,000 people a night.

“It’s a crazy experience,” he admits.

“It’s harder to see faces in arenas so you don’t realise how many people there are... not until the moment in the set where we get everyone to light up their phones. That freaks me out a little bit.

“Smaller venues are more nerve-wracking in a way because you can see their faces and how they’re reacting. When it’s on such a big scale you kind of forget where you are for a bit, which is great for the nerves. It doesn’t really sink in until you come off stage.”

This is especially true of the colossal O2 Arena in London, where he played four shows with Sheeran in front of 20,000 people each night.

“Even as a support, when the place isn’t full because not everyone has left the bar yet, there are still 10,000 people there, which is crazy.”

Has the Bramcote teenager been bricking it, preparing to face such numbers?

“I’m usually kind of chilled before shows but I must admit I have been pretty overwhelmed by it. The crowd have been really welcoming. When you get a really good reception from that amount of people, it feels amazing.”

Most of them may have forked out to see Sheeran but many know Saint Raymond, as he’s discovered when he’s “busked” outside venues for people queuing up.

“It’s been weird seeing some of them sing along,” he laughs.

“It’s really random.”

Do any of them think you are a busker and throw money?

“I wish.”

He’s also been meeting fans after shows.

“We’re getting hundreds of people turn up.”

Burrows, who signed to Asylum, part of the Atlantic group, last summer, has been doing a 40-minute set with his band.

“We do the same set every night to keep it solid. That’s seemed to work really well. And I don’t approach these gigs any differently to what I’ve done before. It’s just about keeping the confidence I’ve built up in the smaller venues. I’m not changing anything too drastically.”

The effect of being on the road with such a big artist has been a sharp increase in his following on social media, topping 26,000 followers on Twitter and 23,000 likes on Facebook.

If they all buy his new single Fall At Your Feet, released at the end of November, he’ll be guaranteed a place in the chart.

It’ll be his first single release after a series of EPs that have all landed in the iTunes chart.

And the album?

“It’ll be early next year, I think, but I’m not too focused on that at the moment,” says Burrows, who has been amusing himself on the road by playing Fifa 2014 (“I play that on the bus, like a loser, but I love it”).

He adds: “I’m always cautious about saying the album’s finished because I’ve been speaking to a lot of artists like Ed and they’ve said they wrote the best song on their album a week before going to press.”

It is common for support artists never to meet the headline act but that’s not been the case with Burrows and Sheeran.

“The first few days he was super ill and then he came to hang out in the dressing room a bit and I caught it,” he says.

“So we’re both still on the mend. But he’s often asking how it’s going and we’re texting. I think for an artist like Ed Sheeran to do that... a lot of artists wouldn’t give a toss.”

His shows often attract celebrities but Burrows hasn’t been star-spotting a great deal, it seems.

“I think Brooklyn Beckham was at the show the other night. And I was stood next to one of One Direction watching Ed last night.”

Did any of the magic rub off... on him?

“(Laughs) Yeah. Probably.”

Does he know which one it was?

“Yeah it was Niall, the blonde one, the Irish kid. It’s how I roll these days.”

The tour comes to Nottingham next week, with two shows at the Capital FM Arena.

“There’s nothing like being at home,” he says.

“I haven’t been back for three weeks. It’ll be nice to go back to my own bed and see the family, all the nieces and nephews. Especially after the craziness of doing all this.”

This week Saint Raymond was confirmed to headline a show at Rock City, only the fourth Nottingham artist to do so, following local boys Jake Bugg, Dog Is Dead and – way back in the 90s – electro-metal band Pitchshifter.

Callum says: “It’s always been the dream – and it’s definitely something to look forward to.”

Saint Raymond supports Ed Sheeran at the Capital FM Arena on Wednesday and Thursday at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced from £36.40, are limited. Call 0843 373 3000 or go to capitalfmarena.com to find out more details.

He plays Rock City on Wednesday, February 11 and tickets are £10 from the box office. Call 0845 413 4444 or go to alt-tickets.co.uk.

Jessie J

October 2013

SHE has been delayed by two hours due to London traffic.
“I wish my car could fly,” says a frustrated Jessie J, finally arriving at rehearsals for her debut UK arena tour.
“Traffic and rain is never a good combination.”
The tour, which comes to Nottingham next week, is up and running but when we speak she’s just about to go through her first full production rehearsal.
“I feel like I’m back in a musical at school,” says the 25-year-old who walked away from the BBC’s The Voice to concentrate on her music career.
“I have someone in my ear saying ‘exit stage centre and walk through the doors...’ because there is so much to remember,” she continues.
“It’s the biggest show and the longest setlist I’ve ever done. We have pyros, fire, five costume changes, footage on the screen...
“I’m, like, sweating three songs in.”
She says ‘like’ quite a lot. It’s an Essex thing.
She adds, excitedly: “The band just ran through Do It Like  A Dude and they were saying ‘it was so hot!’ I was like ‘Why?’ and they were like ‘There’s so much fire!”
She laughs: “At least there are no wigs to set on fire.”
The hair, now blonde and cropped, is a stark contrast to the black bob she sported for her first album. There has been a lot of fuss over the change, which came about when she shaved it off for Comic Relief in March.
“I’m surprised that people think I’ve got a plan for it. Of all the things in my life, the hair is the thing I think least about. I just need a haircut every now and again.”
So has she got a plan for it?
“I might go dark again soon. It’s just hair. It doesn’t define me it doesn’t change my voice or my personality.”
She says that there are dozens of people involved in the staging of the tour but Jessie J is the one calling the shots.
“I remember Beyonce once said: ‘Being polite isn’t always fair to yourself’. That really struck a chord with me because, as a female, so many people can make you live your dreams through their eyes and their vision.
“When you’re talented people take it for granted and it becomes their thing instead of yours.
“There are moments I look back and I’m like ‘I wouldn’t wear that... I wouldn’t wear my make-up like that’ but someone convinced me that it worked.
“Now I go ‘No, no, no... I don’t want to look like that!’”
She adds: “This is my life and I have to look back at it and go ‘Yes, that was me!’”
One imagines it would be easy to exercise her fame and success to gain control but she says not.
“Because everyone has an ego.”
Jessie has taken control of the show, creating a narrative that runs throughout.
“When I found out I was doing an arena tour I wrote a treatment and I said ‘this is my idea and this is what I want to do’. It’s a little story that’s kind of explaining the album,” she says, referring to Alive, which reached No. 3 last month.
It was kept off the top spot by Haim and Justin Timberlake, while her debut had to sit behind 21 by Adele, a fellow graduate of the Brit School.
It was there that she transferred her passion for musicals to pop music.
“I wanted to do musical theatre from when I was really young,” says Jessie, who was 11 when she was cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End production of Whistle Down the Wind.
“I did musical theatre until I was about 18 but when I started writing songs I got excited that music is really the only global language and I’d be able to share my feelings with the world through my music.”
In many ways, Jessie J, who was born Jessica Cornish in Chadwell Heath, prefers the theatre to pop.
“It’s a lot harder playing yourself,” she says.
“That sounds weird but playing a character means you can go home after work and no-one knows you. Being you is weird sometimes because you get asked questions and you’re like ‘I’ve never really thought about that, I know I have to answer it but I don’t know what I’m going to say.’”
So I need to ask one of those questions you’ve never been asked before, don’t I?
“Yeah, basically. Go!,” she says, playfully.
OK, if you were a biscuit, which biscuit would you be?
She’s quick to reply: “I think I’d be either a Hobnob; you can dip them and they won’t break; or a bourbon.”
She pauses, then wonders: “Is a Twix a biscuit?”
Sort of.
“It’s got biscuit in it. It’s mostly biscuit.”
There are different layers...
“Yeah”.
And it’s soft on top.
“Oh God,” she sighs.
At 17, while still performing in stage musical, Jessie was signed to a record label and recorded an album but before it could be released the label folded.
She then found success as a songwriter for artists such as Chris Brown and Miley Cyrus.
Eventually, Universal signed her and released Who You Are, which produced the singles Do It Like A Dude and Price Tag.
She thinks the new album is a more mature offering.
“My demographic is changing with this album, so I’m excited to see who comes along to the shows. Three and four-year-olds were at gigs when I toured with Who You Are. I’d like to think that I’ve now caught the attention of an older crowd too.”
She has never been to Nottingham before and only knows that it’s a big student city. So what is she expecting?
“Everybody dressed as Robin Hood,” she quips, when I remind her of the local legend.
“I’m just really happy that people are going to see something that I’ve dreamt of,” she says of the show.
“But you never know if people are going to like it or not.”
She’ll soon find out because she is in touch with fans through social networking sites such as Twitter and the photo based Instagram.
“I love Instagram,” she beams.
“And you can set the story straight using it.”
What?
“Ever since I’ve been doing Instagram the stories in the papers are taken from my Instagram. It’s something that I’ve put out there, not something that’s come from someone hiding in the bushes or in a car park in a creepy car with a creepy camera...
“I’d much rather it came from me.”

Jessie J plays the Capital FM Arena on October 24 and 25, where she’ll be supported by Lawson, the band featuring Ravenshead guitarist Joel Peat. Tickets are £28 to £36.40, available from the box office, call 0843 373 3000 or go to capitalfmarena.com.
Follow her on Twitter: @JessieJ or Instagram: isthatjessiej

John Bishop (the autobiography)

October 2013

NOTTINGHAM is known for many things but for comedian John Bishop it conjures up one particular memory.
“It’s the only arena gig I’ve had to pause because there was a fight in the audience,” he laughs.
This was at the end of last year when he played four nights at the Capital FM Arena on his Rollercoaster tour.
“I stopped the show, we got all the lights up in the arena and just watched while I did a commentary from the stage.
“It was brilliant,” he adds, continuing to chuckle.
“The security dealt with it, everybody cheered and we carried on with the gig. Afterwards they told me after it was two families who’d had a rumble in the street or something, found themselves sat next to each other and a few words are exchanged. You know what it will have been about; the girls will have had too much wine, one of them will have started arguing with the other...”
The incident doesn’t make it in to Bishop’s autobiography, How Did All This Happen?, which follows his journey from council estates in and around Liverpool and Cheshire to becoming one of Britain’s best known comedians.
Along the way he has a spell as a semi-professional footballer, travels across the US in a sports car, rides home from Australia on a bicycle and carves out a relatively successful career in medical sales.
It was the breakdown of his marriage led prompted him to pack that in and try out stand-up comedy.
He and his wife Melanie didn’t stay apart for long and the couple have now been together for 20 years, living at home in Cheshire with their three teenage sons.
“I spoke to a few people who had written books and they’d spoke to family members and friends to get stories or looked through photo albums... I didn’t do any of that,” says the 46-year-old, who was born in Liverpool, one of three children to Ernie and Kathy Bishop.
“If I didn’t remember it, it didn’t happen to me,” he continues.
“The only story in the book that came out of a conversation with someone else is when I was in the Comedy Store and a fella tried to commit suicide and ended up in the audience. That came out of a conversation I had with another comic who was there. I’d forgot all about it.”
To write the bulk of it he decamped to Spain and rented a villa on his own. Once he’d finished the first draft, Bishop sent copies around the family.
“I said ‘is there anything in that I’ve got wrong or you object to?. I did all that and it was OK. I finished the second draft, gave it to the wife to read, then it goes to print, they publish it, I send me dad a copy and he’s says ‘I’m 72, not 74!’.
“I couldn’t believe it.”
He adds: “Me dad’s dead funny and dead straight; you know where you are with me dad. My mum and dad both read the book and my mum phoned up saying how wonderful it was, that she’d laughed and cried... then she put me dad on. I asked him if he’d read it and he said ‘Yeah, it was good that, yeah.”
The reaction of his three teenage songs was similarly downbeat.
“One morning over breakfast they said they’d  all finished it and I asked them ‘what did you think?’ They said: ‘Yeah, it was all right’”, which makes him howl with laughter.
“That was probably glowing praise from them. And it was the longest conversation I’d had with them in six months.”
Details of his marriage breakdown and his wife’s miscarriage opened up his family to public scrutiny; something he was well aware of when writing the book.
“I asked her if she was OK with all of it. I said ‘I’ve come to a point where I don’t think I can write anymore unless I put those aspects of it in because I can’t mentally explain why I’ve done all the other things I’ve done in my life.’ And fair play, Melanie was very supportive. I hope I’ve represented what it all meant to her as well.”
He adds: “I’m not going to lie, there’s a little bit of nervousness. If you’re in the limelight you get the praise and you learn how to deal with the criticism but if you’re a family member you don’t get that thick skin.”
Unlike many celebrity autobiographies, How Did All This Happen? doesn’t grind to a halt just as fame is looming.
“I told the publishers that this would be one book,” he says.
“I’m not doing that thing where I write a book up to the age of 21 then you get another one next year.”
He’s written it up to the end of last year, therefore covering the sell-out arena tours, TV shows and Paris to London challenge which raised over £4m for Sport Relief.
“If I do another book it’ll be in another 46 years time,” he promises.
“I gave it that title because it’s what I keep asking myself. Even now. You get used to certain aspects of it and there is a tipping point where you think ‘well that’s it now, I’m officially famous’”.
He concedes: “Even if they kick me off the telly I can’t go back to the person I was but I want to let people know who that person was.”
Bishop will be back on tour next year and returning to the Capital FM Arena, despite the punch up last time.
“Nottingham is a great city to play.”
He adds: “Doing stand-up is what my job is now. Everything else is an add-on.”

A League of Their Own.

"I had a few issues with availability with the last series but I made myself available with this series. I was asked to do one and I said no. I’m still really good mates with the lads. I’ll go on holiday with Jamie and I’ll see James a lot, I was seeing Freddie every week over the summer. Sky don’t know why, the producers keep saying 'I don’t know why'... it just didn’t happen."

Saint Raymond to tour with Haim

October 2013

A BRAMCOTE teenager will be heading out on a sell-out tour of the UK and Europe with one of America’s biggest new bands.
Callum Burrows, who performs under the name Saint Raymond, will support Los Angeles trio Haim for three weeks in November and December.
“That’s going to be good fun,” says the 18-year-old. “They are a hot property at the minute.”
Haim’s album, Days Are Gone, last night won its neck-and-neck battle with Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience for the UK No. 1.
Sisters Danielle, Alana and Este Haim have already sold out the tour, meaning Callum will be playing to tens of thousands of people.

The news came just as he was finishing his own headline tour of the UK, with shows selling out, not just in Nottingham, where he played The Bodega, but also in London, Manchester and Bristol.
“It’s crazy,” he says. “It’s the first time I’d played London and it was sold out. On the Haim tour I’ll be playing to crowds ten times the size, though.”
It’s been quite a year for him.
“I’ve spent a lot of time away from home, touring and writing songs. You have got to put the graft in to make sure that you are ready for when it does take off.”
Over the summer he signed to major Asylum, home to Ed Sheeran and Rudimental, and part of the Atlantic group.
“We had a lot of meetings with different labels and we took our time. I felt that Asylum and the people there were right for what I wanted to do.
“We’ve got the tracks ready for the first EP release on the label but we’re working out the logistics – the best time to get it out there. It’ll be January at the latest.
“I’m really keen that it’s right so I’m taking my time. Whatever that first release is, it has got to better than the last EP.”
That was called Escapade and it reached No. 24 on the iTunes chart.
He supported Gabrielle Aplin on a tour of Europe earlier in the year. The singer behind the No. 1 hit The Power Of Love, as used in the John Lewis TV ad campaign at Christmas, has been Callum’s mentor, releasing his first two singles on her own label.
Over the summer he played Splendour, Y Not and the Leeds and Reading Festival, where he met actress Gemma Arterton.
“I had a bit of a fanboy moment,” he admits. “It was in the VIP section and there were quite a few celebrities hanging around. I was trying to play it cool but then I gave up and thought I’ll just be an idiot and ask for a photo with her. And I asked Chris Moyles to take the photo, which was kind of funny.”
Rapper Example has expressed his desire to write with him.
“It’s just been a whirlwind,” says Callum, back home at his parents’ house in Bramcote for the weekend.
“It is nice to get home and have a couple of days to rest up and have some home cooking. And to be in a proper bed.”
But he’s back to work today, writing more new material.
“My mum and dad are loving it. So are my sister and two brothers. The bass player in my band is my brother-in-law so there is a nice family vibe.”
He’s aware of the inevitable comparisons to that other Nottingham teenager, Jake Bugg but says: “ If you build too big a picture and look too far ahead then you can take your eye off the ball. It’s all about building everything slowly. I’m in this for the long haul.”
For more about Saint Raymond, follow him on Twitter: @Callum_SR.
Haim have just booked a second UK tour that will include Rock City on March 4. The support for that has yet to be announced.

The Illusionists: Dan Sperry

May 2013

I WAS four years old when my grandparents took me to see a David Copperfield show in Minnesota, where I grew up. It’s a mid-western state right up by Canada where it’s all hockey, fishing and that kind of thing.
I can still roughly remember him getting cut in half as part of an escape that supposedly goes wrong. I thought I had just seen a guy die.
It was my first non-clown, non-balloon twister experience of a show. My brain hadn’t developed to understand the idea of magic yet.
You could say what were my grandparents thinking taking a four-year-old to a show like that but nobody knew Copperfield would be opening with that.
That was really the beginning for me; the reason why I do this for a living now.
I was doing birthday parties, I was going to libraries and doing school assemblies when I was a teenager but I kept it away from my friends. I didn’t feel that it was necessary to force it on them.
It was cool though because I got pulled out of school quite a bit to go and perform at other schools.
I always knew I was going to do it for a career, though my parents didn’t. They were telling me ‘you’ve got to have something to fall back on, this isn’t a real career!’ My dad is a partner in a business and my mom works in retail. So I went to university just to appease them. I studied digital art in Chicago.
It was during that time that I was offered tours and shows in inner city schools in Chicago where eight-year-olds were throwing gang signs at me. I had a buddy of mine who was a stripper and he’d come with me carrying a gun. It was a learning experience, that’s for sure.
I started filling in for another magician in Vegas when he was on vacation and eventually the producer said ‘how about we just don’t bring him back and you stay on?’
That’s when I moved to Vegas. It was about seven years ago. A couple of years after that was when YouTube really took off and I started throwing videos on there and getting a lot of attention.
Just before then I did a birthday party for Johnny Depp at a club in Los Angeles called the Magic Castle. It was one of his kids’ birthdays and he’d hired out the whole place. But we didn’t get to talk to him because they said ‘you’ve got to be professional’.
I started describing myself as ‘the anti-conjuror’ to give myself a title when I was opening for bands in rock clubs. If I was billed as ‘magician Dan Sperry’ people would think ‘what the hell is this?’ I didn’t want to be immediately disliked because I was a magician.
I’ve used it for years now and it’s worked. And I’ve trademarked it.
I’m not offended that I’m described as Marilyn Manson meets David Copperfield. It was used for a TV show and it’s kind of stuck. I guess it’s an easy way to describe what I do. I do magic tricks and the presentation style is a little shock and gore and craziness but there is a lot of dark humour. It’s not to offend; it’s just silly.
I went on America’s Got Talent to publicise what I do. I knew I wasn’t going to win. I looked at it as a great free TV commercial.
We did The Jonathan Ross Show this week and I was sat next to Yoko Ono in the Green Room the whole time but we didn’t speak to each other. I took a look at her and she took a look at me and I think internally we both just thought ‘Nah!’

The Illusionists: Witness the Impossible UK tour comes to the Royal Concert Hall on Wednesday, October 2. For tickets call 0115 989 5555 or go to www.trch.co.uk. Watch videos from the show at www.theillusionistslive.com.
Their appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show is repeated on ITV1 on Saturday, May 11.