Tag Archives: competition

Wish Alfie Boe a Happy Birthday!

September is over half way through and that means that it is nearly Alfie Boe’s birthday!  Yes, on September 29th, Alfie will be 43…and getting younger every year!

If you would like to post Alfie a birthday message, pop it in the form below and it will be featured on a new Message to Alfie page next week:

This video is from the Classic BRIT awards in 2013 and I chose this video as it was just a few days past Alfie’s birthday and a group of fans were there to see this breathtaking performance and give him our own birthday card.  Amazingly, he then tweeted a thank you alongside a picture of the card…still gives me goosebumps thinking about it now.

Definitely one of my top Alfie moments!

This year, as he has done for the previous five years, Alfie is fundraising for music charity Nordoff Robbins in honour of his birthday (click here to find out more about the charity). Overall, Alfie fans have raised over £8600 and of this year’s fundraiser, Nordoff Robbins CEO, Julie Whelan, said

We are thrilled that our long-standing ambassador Alfie has chosen to dedicate his birthday to us at Nordoff Robbins again this year. This initiative has raised crucial funds for our services and has really helped to raise awareness of our work over the years. Alfie first started supporting Nordoff Robbins in 2011 and we are so proud to be able to say that we have his continued support to this day.

If you would like to donate something to celebrate Alfie’s birthday, click here to go through to Nordoff Robbins – you can choose Alfie Boe as a reason for donating.  Let’s see if we can raise more than the £1719 we raised last year!  Go Alfie Boe fans!

Don’t forget there’s still time to enter our competition to win a Sunflower Jam DVD featuring Alfie singing I Wanna Know What Love Is and others – click here to enter.

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On This Day, 16 September 2012, Alfie Boe Sang…

…I Wanna Know What Love Is at the Sunflower Jam:

Thanks as ever to Linda W for sharing (listen at the beginning and you can hear a few shouts of “Go on Alfie” from Linda).

Sunflower Jam was a concert at the Royal Albert Hall to raise money for a charity of the same name, raising funds for and awareness of an integrated approach to cancer treatments.  Featuring an enviable line up including Brian May, Alice Cooper, Kerry Ellis, Ian Paice, Steve Balsamo and Rick Wakeman, the concert also featured a few musicians who went on to tour with Alfie on the Storyteller tour.

 

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*entrants must be subscribed to this blog – open to UK residents only

And the Winners Are

The Alfie Boe Goody Bags have been won – thank you to everyone for entering – and the winners are (picked at random from Twitter):

Donamarie Triandafilou

Linda Gleason

Diane Davis

Jo Rowe

Janet Hudson

Please can the winners send their addresses via the contact me page and I’ll pass them to Vector to get the bundles sent out!

Of course we should be in Scarborough (and a fair number of fans are!) but in Alfie’s absence (get well soon Alfie), here is our favourite Alfie Boe Live Song, Run, from last year:

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Win an Alfie Boe Goodie Bag!

Everyone loves a competition, right?  Well, to celebrate reaching a milestone number of subscribers, thoughtsofjustafan is teaming up with the Official Alfie Boe Fan Group on Facebook (click here to join in the chat) who have recently welcomed their 2,000th member!

Alfie’s lovely management team at Vector have given us some Alfie goodies and there’s enough for five winners.  So, to enter, all you have to do is make sure you’re subscribed and answer the following question:

Which song did Alfie sing at the Queen’s 90th Birthday Concert?

Good luck – the winners will be chosen at random on Friday 24 June

xx

 

 

Winners of the Signed Finding Neverland Playbills!

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition to win the signed Finding Neverland playbills – the winners are:

Akiko Yonezawa

Pat Watterson

Jo Cassidy

Please send your address details via the contact me page and I’ll get them sent out!

The question that all three answered correctly was:

Which actors played JM Barrie before Alfie Boe?

The answer I was looking for was Matthew Morrison and Tony Yazbeck although I also accepted answers that included Jeremy Jordan and Julian Ovenden.

In case you missed it, Alfie appeared on Kathie Lee and Hoda’s segment of the Today Show on Monday, singing the title track from Finding Neverland (click on Alfie to see):

alfie today show stronger

Amazing last note!  But I have one gripe; guitarist Craig’s beard was in much better shape than Alfie’s – perhaps I’ll have to add him to the beard line up on Darwin, Alfie Boe, His Beard and Me.

Alfie’s a busy boy this week as he’s of course appearing in the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations where he’ll be singing A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square – wonder if he’ll have a second song too?

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plus 4 exclusive photos

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Alfie Boe Wins Audience Choice Award!

He did it and so did all of you who voted for Alfie to win Favourite Replacement in the Broadway.com Audience Choice Awards!

Way to go Alfie and fans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, the award is for his role as Jean Valjean in Les Mis and so here is Alfie singing his most famous song:

To see more about the winners of the awards, click here although it won’t surprise anyone that Hamilton was a big winner.

Don’t forget to enter the competition to win 3 signed Finding Neverland playbills – competition closes tomorrow:

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thoughtsofjustafan’s Birthday Bonanza

It’s our birthday! Two years old today  – woohoo!  It’s been a fabulous year, interviewing Alfie, interviewing several of the former and current Jean Valjean actors and of course, becoming the Official Alfie Boe Fan Blog at the end of February.

To celebrate, I’ve got a new competition for you!  Up for grabs are three signed Finding Neverland playbills.  All you have to do is be a subscriber to this blog and answer the following question:

Winners will be picked on Friday 6 May – good luck!

Thank you for reading and sharing this blogging journey with me – wouldn’t be the same without you.  Thank you for all your comments, I love reading them all so keep them coming!

This is one of my favourite videos from the last twelve months, what’s yours?

We don’t get to hear that very often these days, after being a staple of Alfie’s earlier Bring Him Home tour.

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Finding Neverland for Alfie Boe

The news is official! Alfie Boe’s post Les Mis Show is  Finding Neverland and he will start on March 29th, taking over from Tony Yazbeck.

Producer Harvey Weinstein said  “… who better to take over the role than Alfie Boe? Known for his exquisite tenor voice, he’s also a superb actor whom we’re thrilled to have as part of the family.”

Director Diane Paulus went on to say “It is very exciting that our next J.M. Barrie will be Alfie Boe, whose breadth of experience and enormous musical talents I know will make him a thrilling Barrie. I can’t wait to work with Alfie and to welcome him to our company at the Lunt-Fontanne.”

Alfie himself said “I can’t wait to join this wonderful show and cast.  I’m so excited.  Just a little disappointed I’m not Tinkerbell” – glad to see the sense of humour is still intact!

So, how do we feel about Alfie taking on the role of JM Barrie in this new musical?  When the rumours first surfaced this week, there were a fair amount of tweeters suggesting that while Alfie has a wonderful voice, he’s not right for the part.  Looking closer at these tweets, it seems that most of the concern revolved around Alfie’s age as the previous performers in the role have been younger; add in the casting of a younger Sylvia and you can see why the comments were made.

However, what if the casting of a actor who is the same age as Barrie when he wrote about Peter Pan were to redefine the role?  To answer this question, I turned to Angry Baby Music’s Flo Bannigan, who recently chose Finding Neverland as one of her Top Ten Shows of 2016.  This is what she had to say:

Alfie is currently the same age as JM Barrie when he first wrote about Peter Pan so he is the perfect choice for the role.  So far, younger actors have been cast but having someone older might mean a change of emphasis on the way the relationships are played out.  The main relationship centres around that of Barrie and Sylvia but I’m intrigued to see how Alfie’s portrayal brings out Barrie’s relationship to the children – many reviews of him in Les Mis have specifically mentioned the authenticity of Alfie’s relationship with little Cosette.  Different actors bring different aspects to the same character, no actor wants to take on a new role and play it exactly the same as all the others who went before.

When Alfie stepped onto the stage at the O2, he transformed the role of Jean Valjean forever.  This was underlined when he stepped forward during the Valjean quartet – there was a definite sense of the baton having passed and a new style of JVJ was born from a different genre of performing arts.  Before that, if you had asked ardent Les Mis fans whether JVJ could be played by an opera singer who wasn’t big and full of muscles they would probably have said no.  That all changed after the 25th anniversary concert.  Why shouldn’t he do the same for JM Barrie in Finding Neverland?

Thanks Flo.  So, as Alfie so successfully redefined one of the most iconic roles in modern musical theatre, what if he could do the same for a new musical like Finding Neverland?  How amazing would that be!

In the meantime, have you entered the Alfie Boe Les Mis Goodie Bag competition yet?  Click here – good luck!

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plus 4 exclusive photos

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Win Les Mis Goodie Bag!

So, with news of Alfie’s next move (I understand the final agreements are being ironed out this week) in our minds, today it’s time to think about Les Mis.  There are just a handful of performances left to catch Alfie Boe as Jean Valjean, so it’s competition time!

The prize is a signed Les Mis playbill, a Les Mis programme (featuring Alfie), a New York City Guide featuring Alfie on the cover and a signed photo.  I’ll even throw in a stick of Classic Quadrophenia rock!

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is answer the following question:

How many productions of Les Mis has Alfie Boe appeared in?

Competition now closed

To be in with a chance of winning you will need to be subscribed to this blog – so do it now!

A winner will be picked at random on Saturday 27 February – good luck!

alfie les mis

To help you think, here is the next Broadway Jean Valjean, John Owen-Jones (thanks to Linda for sharing):

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Alfie Boe Album of the Month – Home for the Holidays

Advent is upon us and we are fast counting down to Christmas!  It’s the time of year when we can listen to our favourite Christmas music without feeling guilty that it’s the wrong time of year so I thought that it was high time we revived thoughtsofjustafan’s Alfie Boe album of the month with Home for the Holidays.  In the absence of an Alfie Christmas album, I’ve been listening to the CD and watching the DVD for a good few weeks now – you’re not going to tell me I’m the only one surely?

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s (MoTab) annual Christmas concerts invite world renowned classical singers as their special guests (Bryn Terfel and Katherine Jenkins have appeared in recent years).  The concerts are filmed and shown on TV before being released on CD and DVD the following year – it takes a while to edit and it then makes sense to wait until nearer Christmas to release the finished product.  Alfie appeared at these concerts in 2012 which was made all the more special as he and Sarah have a home in Salt Lake City; one of the most moving parts of the concert was Alfie thanking the audience for “bringing me home”, a neat link in to his most famous song.

A few views for this video…a cool 1.6 million!

As much as I love Bring Him Home, my favourite songs from Home for the Holidays are I Wonder as I Wander and Angels, From the Realms of Glory.  The former features John Rutter’s arrangement (also seen on Alfie’s 2007 Onward album).  A behind the scenes interview with the musical directors of the concert shows that Alfie was initially reluctant to perform this song, but I’m so glad he did.

If you don’t yet own this on CD (and only 37% of fans did in our 2014 poll) then you are missing out.  It’s available here:

home for the holidays

Only 43% of fans owned the DVD which may have something to do with the fact that it’s not readily available in the UK.  Click below to buy from Deseret Books (where Alfie did a signing session the following year).  As far as I am aware, it’s playable in the UK – I bought it from Deseret and it works just fine.

home for the holidays

I have a copy of this album to give away to one lucky reader who can answer this question:

Who wrote I Wonder as I Wander?

The competition is now closed!  The lucky winner (picked at random) is Ann Warren!  Please click here to send me your details.

This competition is open to everyone, not just UK residents (although I can’t say whether you will receive it for Christmas, due to the vagaries of the postal system)!  I’ll even throw in a copy of Sleigh Ride, the Boston Pop album that features Alfie on O Holy Night!

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plus 4 exclusive Alfie photos

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