| Gang Show facts | - The 26th St Albans Scout & Guide Gang Show is renowned to be one of the best in the country. People will be travelling from across the UK (and abroad) to see it.
- OFFICIAL! – IT’S A SELL OUT! The show will play to packed audiences from Wednesday 9 February – Saturday 12 February.
- There are 128 cast members (from 11 to 25 years of age)
- There's been 4½ months of rehearsals – that’s over 150 hours spent learning lines and perfecting songs and movement!
- Over 40 songs – that’s more than three west end musicals!
- Over 32 dance routines – that beats a Kylie show!
- Over 18,000 items in the Gang Show wardrobe
- The lighting rig alone takes over three days to programme, uses over 1 kilometres of cabling and would power over 50 electric heaters!
- Over 130 volunteers help to put the show on – production crew, musicians, technical crew, wardrobe team, set builders, business team to name but a few
- The show uses over 30 tonnes of technical equipment
- Auditions for the show took place in September last year and lasted a whole day!
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For anyone who has never witnessed a St Albans' gang show production - then make sure you get a ticket for next year's ASAP. They are legendary in their scale and in their quality. No wonder people queue all night to buy their tickets! In order to remain fair and balanced - as any BBC reporter should be, I must first of all declare a personal interest in the gang show. My niece was in the current production - and over the past decade I have watched various other relatives take to the stage. Confession given, I will put aside my family interest and report on the production in a fair, accurate and impartial manner ... (go Sarah go!) There were 128 youngsters in the production. They come, they go, in various groups, each getting a chance to shine at the front as well as support the total look further back. I simply cannot comprehend how the choreography is worked out - or how the noise levels are kept low at the rehearsals! The sheer size of the production is amazing.
 | | Watch out guards . . . |
There's a really good balance in this year's production between the soloists' showing off their ability to sing and not allowing a few individuals to hijack the show. My hat goes off to the soloist in Delightfully Delicious who did a cracking rendition of the start of Queen's We Will Rock You, managing to carry it off wearing a pink and white stripy rock outfit! All the soloists were talented but the girls who did Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps and Only Fools Rush In brought a tingle to my spine with their clear tones. There was a mixture of emotions too. From the upbeat The Weekend Starts Here through the soft and smoochy Rhythmic Romance to soul-searching emotion in This Is What It's All About with I Hope You Dance, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now and Reach. Dance wise there was a lively mix of romantic ballroom stuff, hand jives and I was lovin the line dancing routine. Synchronisation was precise and there were smiles on all the faces, despite any complicated footwork. The sketches worked well - from the cheeky We're Four Little Boys/Girls to the sublime in Changing Rooms - and all performed in true gang show style.
 | | Fools Rush In |
I particularly liked the video presentation featuring behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals with facts about the logistics of the Gang Show which worked really well. It always makes me feel very nostalgic as a past Brownie and Guide to watch the traditional finale with one voice starting off before the whole group come in with great gusto. And that's just the message. It's not the soloists that make up the St Albans Gang Show, it's the sum of the whole. Producer David Barker and director Avril Drew must have been very proud of the show. And as the Scouts and Guides motto goes, I bet they're already getting prepared for Gang Show 2006. | 
