Which role will Alfie shortly take over on Broadway? JM Barrie in Finding Neverland
Who did Alfie pick as his favourite Javert in an interview with thoughtsofjustafan last year? Norm Lewis and Earl Carpenter (click here for the interview)
How many brothers and sisters does Alfie have and what are their names? 8: Anne, Joseph, John, Pauline, Michael, Fran, Teresa, Maria
What are the names of the two alternate Rodolfo’s in Baz Luhrman’s La Boheme? David Miller and Jesus Garcia
What is the name of Alfie’s management company? Vector
Name the support acts for Alfie’s three headline tours (Bring Him Home, Storyteller and Serenata). Laura Wright (if you relied on the tour DVD for this answer you may have got it wrong!), Emilia Mitiku and Sol3 Mio
Alfie won Glyndebourne’s Christie prize – what was the role? Albert Herring
In which opera house was Alfie’s last operatic role? Coliseum (ENO)
And which opera was he performing in? The Mikado
What was the name of the new song that Alfie revealed at Leeds in 2015? Against the Tide
If you got 10 you’re an Alfie Boe mastermind champion
If you got 6+, you’re a strong contender
If you got 3-5, call yourself a fan?
Less than 4 and you’re probably scratching your head and saying Alfie who?
So, how did you do? Come and tell us if you got 10 out of 10!
If you’re reading this then you must be a fan of Alfie Boe, right? But how well do you know the man himself? Could he be your specialist subject on Mastermind? If you’ve been left shouting ‘Alfie Boe’ at the TV during Pointless when the contestants didn’t have a clue, perhaps this is the quiz for you.
There’s not a prize though, just the satisfaction of scoring ten out of ten. Good luck – answers next week.
Which role will Alfie shortly take over on Broadway?
Who did Alfie pick as his favourite Javert in an interview with thoughtsofjustafan last year?
How many brothers and sisters does Alfie have and what are their names?
What are the names of the two alternate Rodolfo’s in Baz Luhrman’s La Boheme?
What is the name of Alfie’s management company?
Name the support acts for Alfie’s three headline tours (Bring Him Home, Storyteller and Serenata).
Alfie won Glyndebourne’s Christie prize – what was the role?
In which opera house was Alfie’s last operatic role?
And which opera was he performing in?
What was the name of the new song that Alfie revealed at Leeds in 2015?
Answers revealed next week! In the meantime, don’t forget to tun into BBC Radio 2 on Monday 14 March at 10pm for Alfie’s Opera Heroes!
Or Happy Valentine’s Day as it’s better known – the Smooch Day comes from Alfie himself who tweeted that phrase himself on this day in 2015. If you’ve yet to get a Valentine this year or even if you have, this is especially for you:
Thanks to Nikki for sharing!
This is one of my favourite Alfie Boe songs ever and I especially love Emilia Mitiku’s vocals. This song was nominated in the 2014 poll to decide Alfie Boe’s Most Romantic Song so I know I’m not alone in loving it.
That said, my favourite romantic album as a whole is Love Was A Dream – just magnificent. Here is You Are My Heart’s Delight from that album (thanks to Linda for sharing):
A happy memory of the late, great Sir Terry Wogan too.
Lastly, the last time we looked at Alfie Boe’s romantic songs a song from Serenata came out on top, so here is My Heart is Yours from the first night of the Serenata tour (thanks once again to Linda for sharing):
…It’s Only Love on the last night of his Storyteller tour: Belfast. This was by no means the first time we had heard this song on the tour but as it was the last, they did it a bit differently (more material for the Rear of the Year competition too):
Every time Alfie gets a new band together, we all say how much we love them and how much we then miss them when they’re gone – just goes to show that Alfie knows how to pick the best MD’s and musicians.
Dimming of the Day with Emilia Mitiku on the first date of the Storyteller tour. This was the first time we had heard Alfie and Emilia sing together and what a collaboration! An inspired choice for both their voices and ensured we were totally familiar with the song when we heard it on the 2013 album, Trust (albeit with Shawn Colvin). Lots of you like this song as you voted it into the top 5 of the Alfie Boe Best Duet poll!
Emilia is a Swedish singer songwriter who I had never heard of until the Storyteller tour although when I first heard her I immediately bought her album, I Belong To You. Emilia, daughter of renowned Ethiopian singer Teshome Mitiku, grew up listening to the smoky tones of Etta, Ella, Eartha and Billie but her first brush with musical fame came via the pop world. In 1999, Emilia Rydberg as she was then known, had a world wide smash hit with Big Big World. That sound is light years away from the largely self written I Belong To You. Click here to buy her album.
Here are Alfie and Emilia in Birmingham where we also see Alfie’s unintentional joke at Emilia’s expense ! – thanks to Linda:
Dimming of the Day remains my favourite song from the Storyteller tour and I have since listened to the many other versions recorded since it was written by Richard Thompson and recorded with Linda Thompson in 1975. The Tom Jones version on his 2012 album Spirit in the Room is magical – click here for that album.
I imagine quite a few of you are saying “of course we should” in answer to this question – well, I think we would all like to dance with Mr B – but in this instance I’m talking about dancing at an Alfie concert. Alfie is well known for urging audiences to stand up and dance at concerts but what is the right thing to do if you want to dance and no one else does? If you are on the front row and dancing, how does that affect others behind you? Alternatively, if you have paid a lot of money to sit on the front row, how do you feel if a lot of people come and stand in front of you for half the concert? I’m not sure I have the answers to these conundrums but here we go anyway.
In his recent UK tour, Alfie several times, at a certain point in the show, asked us all to dance. We were left in no doubt that he wanted us to dance as he urged us to “get up, on your feet, that means stand up”! Now I didn’t need much encouragement to get up and dance but in some cases it can be a bit awkward if you stand up and look around and….you are the only one standing! Particularly if you are near the front – it takes a bit of nerve to keep on standing when all around are sitting and looking a bit disapproving. I’ll admit, at some shows I was a bit like a yo-yo!
Of the shows I attended on this most recent tour, the best dancing crowd was at the O2 in London; being halfway back on the arena floor I was well placed to see that a lot of the audience was up and dancing for most of the show after Alfie had asked us to dance. However, the next night, and last night of the tour, Cardiff, was a totally different kettle of fish. Although the audience responded well when Alfie first asked us to dance it was short lived as most sat down immediately after that song (Volare, I think) and the majority didn’t get up again. They made up for this by being the best singing crowd – Wales really is a nation of fabulous singers.
So, when I asked you all for your comments on this contentious subject, the main response was that if Alfie asks, then you should definitely dance if you are able. Having said that, a fair amount of people did raise the point about the possibly blocked view of those behind you – some respondents had been stuck behind a lot of standing people and ended up seeing not much at all. Fans unable to stand / dance are more likely than others to face this problem. They don’t want to spoil the enjoyment of others but they do want to be able to see Alfie too.
And there we have the conundrum: how to enjoy yourself and dance whilst not spoiling the enjoyment of others. Even after researching this post and talking to lots of fellow fans I still don’t have the definitive answer. I love to dance at a concert so if appropriate I will do so although I’d like to think I wasn’t spoiling it for anyone else at the same time. I suppose the only way to ensure that is to get everyone else to stand up at the same time – answers on a postcard please as to how we can do that! Perhaps it would help if we were allowed to dance in the aisles or at the front, something that happened at a few venues on the Storyteller tour but not this time around. Then again…what about that question I posed at the top, what if you had a front row ticket and everyone came and stood in front of you? You might still have a good view being at the front but then again…and there we are going round in circles again. Did I mention I don’t have the answers????!!!! We will probably have this discussion for as long as Alfie urges his audiences to get up and dance so feel free to add your thought to the comments box.
One reason for dancing, given time and time again, is that Alfie so clearly appreciates and loves seeing his fans dancing and having a good time. I have to agree with this – in London, he was thrilled to see a group of fans standing and dancing through the Quadrophenia songs in the encore. Additionally, where possible, he gets fans on stage to dance with him (this happened in Bournemouth) and at the Huawei Winter Concert at the Royal Festival Hall in December 2013 he pulled a girl out of the stalls to dance on stage with him as she was almost the only one dancing. The main set finished with almost half the audience on stage (thanks Linda for sharing):
Glory Glory Hallelujah, from Trust was only heard a handful of times on Alfie’s recent tour but it was certainly the song that got people to their feet…mostly! When I first heard the song, I was dancing round the kitchen to it and every time I’ve heard it since I have to dance so no way was I sitting down on the tour! It’s a song I just HAVE to dance to, and I know I’m not alone in that opinion!
As we countdown towards the tour – four weeks today but who’s counting – it’s time to see which song you voted into fourth place in the Alfie Boe Best Live Song poll.
Janet Hudson nominated this moment from the second Blackpool date on the 2013 Storyteller tour and appeared to be a completely off the cuff moment. Just when the audience was expecting to hear Murray Gould start playing the intro to Bring Him Home, Alfie instead broke into You Are My Heart’s Delight in the original German.
Most fans know that this song has special meaning for Alfie and family, being a favourite of his Dad’s and also the first song he ever sang at a professional audition. Those of us lucky enough to be there last April were blown away by the vocals and the emotion. What an atmosphere!
Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz is from the 1929 operetta, The Land of Smiles, written for Richard Tauber by Franz Lehar. The video below showcases an audio version by Tauber:
Alfie recorded You Are My Heart’s Delight (in English) for his album of Lehar songs, Love Was A Dream and this version made the top ten of the Alfie Boe Best Ever Recorded Song.
Alfie’s new album, Serenata, can be pre-ordered below:
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