Hundreds of acts in both music and cabaret entered and over the next two Sundays Pride’s Got Talent 2019 comes to a glittering climax at two finals both to be held at London’s Apollo Theatre in the West End. Dave Cross spoke to Ian Massa-Harris about this year’s contest and the finals.
Hi Ian, so how has Pride’s Got Talent 2019 been so far?
PGT 2019 has been ABSOLUTELY out of this world. Once again the calibre of performers has increased both in talent and how amazingly diverse they are. We have had it all, plate spinners, Eurovision style acts, dance troupes, performance art, boy and girl bands and as much camp as you can fit into three months of auditions! I am also particularly proud and excited as we have a couple of previous finalists enter again and once again become finalists.
How does the standard on both sides compare to previous years?
Every year I am amazed at how diverse and talented the LGBT+ community is. I think we all sometimes take for granted what fabulous talent there is and this year both sides have not fallen short of that.
On the music side what styles of performers and genres have you seen this year?
To be honest Dave, what haven’t we seen would be more appropriate. RnB, boy and girl bands, amazing trans acts, solo/duo/trio/quartet and quintets, rock, jazz, singer songwriter, club… the list goes on and on.
And on the cabaret side what styles have you had?
Let me paint a picture, imagine… Eurovision camp, headdresses, drag kings/queens and androgynous gender neutral drags, musical and operatic drags, glam rock, dance troupes, comedy, guitars all in a lovely glitter wrapper? Can you see my picture–well x 100 and you will get the correct image!
You have two finals, at a very exciting venue…
Yes, as always our finals are split into two, however this year we have given Pride’s Got Talent an upgrade… we are off to the Apollo Theatre, home of Everybody’s Talking about Jamie. We have been working very hard to Nymax Theatres to ensure our performers a taste of West End Life. This year we are in partnership with Amazon Music UK, sponsored by Just Eat and supported by Pride in Music and The Musicians Union–we could not do this without them.
Can you talk us through what will happen on both nights?
Michael Twaits, our glorious host will take care of both finals ensuring the evening moves along. Each finalist gets eight minutes to showcase their talent in front of 12 judges! 12! I hear you say? Yes! This ensures we have the correct mix of community and industry. At the end of the night the judges have the very difficult task of choosing one runner up and one winner! We shall also be joined by last year’s winners–LaMont and Busty and Ginger.
And what do the winners get?
I can’t tell you exactly yet what they get as we announce it on the night, BUT believe you me it doesn’t stop with performing at Pride in London on the big day!
Pride In London Music Final is from 6.30pm Sunday 9 June and Cabaret Final is Sunday 16 June at Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1
Tickets on sale for both events at prideinlondon.org
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