‘There will be no ushers telling you to sit down’

A 32-piece orchestra will be taking classic Pride anthems and giving them a new lease of life in an exciting and ground-breaking show coming to the Bridgewater Hall.

Pride Classical will see 50 years of Pride songs transformed into classical arrangements, from I Am What I Am to the Pet Shop Boys’ It’s A Sin, alongside performers Danny Beard, Alison Jiear, and Matt Henry.

The show, from the award-winning Carrot Productions, will be historic as it will feature a majority of LGBTQ+ orchestral artists performing together at a Pride event for the first time ever.

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Those working on the show say the ‘inventive’ performance is going to be like nothing anyone has ever seen before and see big hits from Lady Gaga, ABBA and Kylie Minogue all performed in a new and magical way.

“It’s all the top LGBTQ+ anthems you’ve heard over the last 50 years performed by a great orchestra, West End stars and drag royalty,” bassoonist and producer Ben Hudson tells the M.E.N.

"We're taking pop, disco, country and dance tracks and putting them into a full symphony orchestra. What the team has achieved is just astonishing.”

The team behind the event, which takes place on June 2, said they initially began with a list of ‘more than 500’ songs before whittling them down to the final few that have made it into the show.

“There’s a reason behind each song,” Ben explains. “We really wanted to make sure there was some resonance either because of the historic impact or the meaning of the song at the time it was performed.

“We’re being very inventive. Our aim here isn’t to lift what you hear on a CD and replicate it with an orchestra, we want to elevate the song and make it sound better.