Shropshire Magazine

Duetting with tenor Wynne Evans at the annual Weston Park extravaganza

Come rain or shine, Sarah Ryan sings!

She sang in front of mirrors while still in nappies, sang her way to a music scholarship at Wellington’s Wrekin College and sang her little heart out to become BBC Choirgirl of the Year at the tender age of 15.

Nearly 20 years on, Sarah is in great demand in the West End and throughout the country, and is a regular performer on European stages. In fact she is doing just what she wanted to do and being what she deserved to be: a singing star.

The Ryan diva talents were on show in Shropshire this summer at the popular Weston Park Proms evening when she defied the weather to keep the faith with nearly 5,000 waterproofed fans, tucked under brollies but still there for the long haul - and thoroughly enjoying it.

I too thoroughly enjoy seeing and hearing Sarah, especially having had the privilege of being involved with her early career and the pleasure of becoming good friends since.

Sarah performs at Weston Park

So wow! Prima Donna from Phantom of the Opera will never seem quite the same again. It’s mine now, Mr Lloyd Webber!

It is of course one of the many songs in one of the many West End shows in which Sarah Ryan has appeared.

She recently left Evita where she was ‘the soprano dimension’ and says: “They were really generous with the deal because I already had freelance concert demands when they asked me.

“The rest of the cast called me Sarah-doesn’t-do-Saturdays Ryan because I’d be singing somewhere else at the weekend and go back on Monday from some fabulous castle - they were wonderful to work with.

“That production of Evita was the first in the West End since the original which opened 28 years ago to the day.”

Sarah started a performing arts degree after leaving Wrekin, but left after a term for the best of reasons - a part in Les Miserables when it opened in Manchester in 1992 - the first time it had left the West End - and where, she says, “I learned so much”.

I was there on an opening night which had added drama - the famous barricade wouldn’t work, the performance was abandoned. Still Sarah shudders at the memory.

“It was heartbreaking, the end of the world,” she recalls.

“Cameron Mackintosh himself was there that night and we pleaded to make a barricade out of chairs and tables like we had in rehearsals. He said no, we did it properly or not at all.”

The bonus for the audience was that we all went back for another ‘opening night’.

The former Wrekin College schoolgirl and BBC Choirgirl of the Year, is coming back to Wrekin College for a ‘Golden Years’ concert.
I first met Sarah when she became Choirgirl of the Year. She was tiny - four foot 11 and three quarters - and desperately wanted to be five feet. She got there and excitedly called me - and doubtless others - to announce it!

Nearly 20 years on, catching up with her in the pretty Hertfordshire town where she now lives, Sarah reminds me that she is now five foot two. That’s a whole 62 inches of fun and talent with elegant, fashionable heels edging her even higher!

“I also desperately wanted my feet to grow to a shoe size three - the first proper size for women - which they did,” she chuckles.

In every way, she has indeed grown up - though entertainer Don Maclean still once introduced Sarah by saying: “They don’t make diamonds as big as bricks.”

But what hasn’t changed is the delightful charm which so captivated audiences in Shropshire and beyond when she became BBC Choirgirl of the Year in 1988.

The former Wrekin College schoolgirl and BBC Choirgirl of the Year, is coming back to Wrekin College for a ‘Golden Years’ concert

That soaring voice, from a tiny schoolgirl frame in a blazer, was unbelievable and the launching pad for the West End, the concert circuit - at home and overseas - and at this time of year, a star of the Proms.

Local fans remember her early success and have faithfully followed her career, while thousands more now see her on stage and TV, hear her on radio and enjoy her in concert.

Sarah won both music and academic scholarships to Wrekin College and says: “I still get Christmas cards from fans in the Shropshire area who were around when it all happened, which is lovely.”

It is a great delight for me that she is coming back during this year to do a concert for my Golden Years appeal - probably her one-woman show - in the place which was her launching pad, Wrekin College.

Headmaster Stephen Drew has offered the college as a venue and who better to star there than Sarah Ryan whose photograph is on its wall of fame.

Sarah’s parents Martin and Pam remain an encouragement and support.

She says with a fond smile: “They spent their lives driving me here, there and everywhere to classes, lessons, exams, auditions. Now they spend their summers working around where I am going to be.”

Her CV now includes Christine in Phantom of the Opera in Manchester, productions as varied as Cinderella with Brian Conley, the original cast of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Woman in White for Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Jerry Springer: The Opera - a departure which she now hardly believes she did!

Concert dates include appearances in Sweeney Todd with Bryn Terfel, HMS Pinafore at the Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall and as principal soloist for a ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ tour of New York, South Africa and Taiwan as well as the UK … and a whole lot more.

She says: “I can’t believe how lucky I am just to be able to do what I love best.”

Those of us proud to be fans and friends are pretty lucky, too.

Sarah’s new cd, Showtime is available at www.sarahryan.com