Alistair McGowan hoping to make an impression on Wolverhampton and Ludlow

Former star of BBC One’s The Big Impression, Alistair McGowan needs no introduction. Naturally, we’re going to give him one anyway.

An impressionist, comic, actor, singer and writer, the ‘quintuple threat’ that is Mr McGowan made his name with a variety of projects including work on ITV’s now legendary Spitting Image, a stint on Dead Ringers, and with his tenure as host and star of 90s sporting impressions show, The Game’s Up on BBC Radio 5 Live.

With comedy partner Ronni Ancona, McGowan created The Big Impression – the early noughties sketch-show hit that would see him become a household name. Yet there was more to McGowan than imitation.

As a dramatic actor he has appeared on stage and on the small screen in a variety of roles. He is also a passionate pianist, and lover of music, and it is this that will see him leading the charge in Shropshire with a very special event in just a few months.

Before that, however, McGowan is coming to Wolverhampton to do what he is best known for – and he won’t be coming alone. 

From February 17-19, Alistair McGowan will be joining forces with fellow comedy legend Jasper Carrott to split both the bill and our sides with three nights of fun at the Wolverhampton Grand. An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan is set to see the two masters of comedy present a joyous mix of stand-up and impressions that are not to be missed.

When the pair first teamed for a one-off festival appearance it proved a match made in comedy heaven and, as McGowan relates, the chance to work together again has always been too good to miss.

"We first paired up in 2014 and have done over 100 shows together now,” he said. “We’ve both really enjoyed sharing the bill. Doing half an hour each per half gives the audience variety and value – and gives us each a rest! 

“For me, it’s been great to learn from Jasper’s huge experience. He’s still at the top of his powers and just loves being on stage and making people laugh.”

According to McGowan, audiences at the Grand can simply expect very much of what both performers each do best. “Silly jokes and silly voices,” he said. “Neither of us do anything remotely political or anything about personal struggle – except perhaps coping with ageing! I’ll be doing some of my ‘classic’ impressions and a good few new people too. I’m sure I’ll throw in a Mick McCarthy for old times’ sake – and because I can’t do a convincing Portuguese accent!” 

Following the fun and frolicking of the Grand shows, McGowan will be celebrating the joy of a beloved instrument in the town he now calls home.

An exciting calendar event for music lovers and, indeed, anyone who appreciates a good ‘tickling of the ivories’, Ludlow Piano Festival takes place for the third time from May 21-25.

Spearheaded by McGowan, who now lives in the South Shropshire town, the event has delighted crowds in previous years with its celebration of all things piano, and all of the stops are being pulled out to make sure this year’s festival is a roaring success.

“This is the third year of it now, and it’s five days of 16 piano-related events,” he said. 

“We’re trying to encompass everything about the piano, basically. It’s mainly classical but I really try and make things (I hate the word, but) ‘quirky’. We try and give a variety of concerts so that it’s not just 16 recitals. 

"We start off with a celebrity event, for instance, where we have celebrities who you might not know played the piano. They come and they do a concert on the first night and that’s always very popular and gets us off to a good start. This year we have the likes of Rev Richard Coles and Miles Jupp. In the past we’ve had Tim Vine and Jo Brand.”

As McGowan is keen to stress, the festival is all about variety. “I’m doing a show about the composer Erik Satie,” he said. “Satie was a French composer who was quite unusual and did lots of writing of very unusual, funny and some sad pieces which he hoped to perform as a sort of a speaker, but I don’t think he ever did.

“I’ve translated and adapted those and put them around the music, so I shall be playing his music and speaking his words in a concert I’m calling ‘Erik Satie: His Words, His Music, Your Ears’.

“And then we have themed concerts. We’ve got a young lady coming up to play a concert we’re calling ‘Born In The USA’, so she’s playing purely American composers. Similarly, we’ve got a concert on Polish composers called ‘From Pole To Pole’, and we have another concert on purely female composers called ‘She’, played by a female pianist, Clare Hammond, who is doing a lot down south – in fact, she plays all over the world.

“We’ve got some big name pianists, people like Joanna MacGreggor. She’s a very big name who’s been around for a number of years – a wonderful pianist.

“We’ve also got Peter Donohoe, who is very experienced. He’s playing an evening of Chopin. And we’ve got a lovely young pianist called Tyler Hay, who I’ve got to know recently. He describes himself as ‘the Ken Dodd of the piano world’. He’s a brilliant pianist and he speaks in between the pieces like nobody I’ve ever known, and this is something I’m really keen on at our festival – that they are events rather than just a pianist who comes out and plays. I like the pianist to do something unusual.”

A big part of the ethos behind the festival is to showcase how piano music can be enjoyed in a plethora of ways, and – though McGowan is not a fan of the term – this is where this year’s ‘quirkiness’ comes in. 

“We’ve got exciting things like silent movies, which we also did last year with great success,” he said. 

“We have a live piano accompaniment. Last year we had Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy – three shorts. This year we’re doing one long film, which is Buster Keaton’s ‘The General’. It’s an amazing feat when you see these musicians sort of improvising. You can actually forget that they’re there. 

“Then we also have ‘Music To Read To’. We’re encouraging people – which you don’t normally do – to bring a book, and the pianist is going to play while people are able to read to themselves. I hope this will attract some people who might think ‘oh I don’t want to go to that’, but their parents or partners who like the music might say, ‘well bring a book, you can read’, which is normally frowned upon. It’s the idea of sharing a reading experience with 300 people, but also sharing it while listening to the music.”

As well as enjoying the entertainment, piano enthusiasts can also partake in a little playing.

“We have two pianos which are going to be put outside, and they are available for anybody, all festival long, to turn up and play and also to listen to,” McGowan said. “That’s been wonderfully popular and it creates a really lovely atmosphere.”

With further planned festival appearances from Dame Sheila Hancock (Carry On Cleo, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) and Anton Lesser (Game of Thrones, Wolf Hall), as well as sessions with a raft of other talented musicians, McGowan is confident that this year’s event will have something for everyone – an objective that was at the heart of the festival’s founding. 

“I’ve got many reasons for doing this festival but one of them is that I think it’s very easy to write something off if you just hear one example of it,” he said. 

“A lot of people used to say to me and my wife ‘I don’t like musicals’. I’d think, ‘how can you just say you don’t like all musicals? How can you compare, say, Carousel with West Side Story, with Hamilton, etc? They’re all their own thing’.

“I hope the case with our festival is that there’s enough variety for everyone to find something they love. Sometimes all I want is one moment in a concert where I’m transported and I’m moved and taken to another plane, and that’s happened a lot at the events we’ve had in the past.”​

Alongside this, for McGowan the piano festival is also very much about celebrating the joy of Ludlow – a town that he truly adores.

“I’ve lived in Ludlow for just over four years now,” he said. “I never thought I’d leave London but I had been to Ludlow once to do a show and I also came to Shrewsbury some years later to do a show.

“I like Shrewsbury too but I just thought Ludlow was such a beautiful town, and it always stayed in my head what a nice place it was. My wife and I happened to see a picture of a house in The Times and said ‘where’s that lovely house?’, and it was in Ludlow. So that was it. We’ve been thrilled as well to find that so much of the surrounding area is so beautiful.​

“Whenever our pianists come here, from wherever, they always say ‘what a wonderful area; what a great place’. And that was also part of the ethos – to bring people to Shropshire and celebrate this particular corner of it.”

We are sure, as is McGowan, that this third festival will be a resounding success, and look forward to it putting a skip in our steps as the warmer weather returns.

“We try and make it a full-on experience to introduce people to the music,” said McGowan. “We want to give something for everybody to enjoy about this instrument, and hope to see as many of you there as possible.”​

Events for Ludlow Piano Festival will be held at various locations around the town, including at St Laurence’s Church and at Ludlow Assembly Rooms. Tickets are now available at ludlowpianofestival.com

Tickets for An Evening Shared With Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan can be purchased at grandtheatre.co.uk