Making a special trip from playing Vegas to come home to Wales, Caldicot was really excited and thrilled that organiser Mark Stocker had arranged for Tom Jones to perform for us on Saturday 22nd September. Leather clad Tom Jones (alias John Prescott – no not two jags, this one’s from Colwyn Bay) opened up with the appeal to Keep Your Hat On while everyone there hoped everything else would stay on as well – fortunately it did. No split trousers either, and definitely no knickers thrown on stage! Tom announced that he’d gone back to his original colour and had stoppped dying his hair grey. Believe that, believe anything!
Tom reminisced about his love life in the old days in Ponty by singing – I’ll never fall in love again – not after the trouble you got into, boyo and then the audience of about 120 really warmed up to Tom belting out old favourites Green, Green Grass of Home, Delilah (not quite the way the choir sings it), She’s a Lady, Kiss (remember the Listerine advert?), Man from La Mancha, All those Funny, Familiar, Forgotten Feelings (more reminiscent of a past love life), Old Black Betty (bam-a-lam), What’s New Pussycat?, Mama told me not to come (good advice son,) Sex Bomb and unforgettably singing a duet (triplet) with the girls from the Coach and Horses, Chepstow (who invited them?) who replaced Cerys Matthews in Baby it’s Cold Outside! Hold, back, Sheila! This is family entertainment!
John (or Tom) showed his versatility firstly by impersonating his Prescott namesake and following up by emulating his neighbour in Vegas, Robbie Williams (name dropper – or what!) by belting out ‘Angels’ which got everyone (almost) onto the floor to dance what looked like the Hokey, Cokey in slow motion. Brilliant!
Richie Llewellyn found the New Year hats and threatened to fine anyone not wearing one, so we had to keep our hats on throughout the second half and also in his own faultless, inimitable style (yeah, yeah!) conducted the raffle where most of the prizes seemed to be bottles of wine – but that’s what we came for, wasn’t it? Lucky all the winning tickets were green or Richie would have been well confused. Mark helped with the difficult numbers.
The evening came to a close with some smoochy numbers and at coming on for midnight everyone left having had a fabulous, fun night proving once again that our Choir Hall Social Nights are highly successful, entertaining evenings. A final comment from Sheila of the Coach and Horses “I didn’t know this place existed – it was fantastic and we’ll come again”. Look out for our next evening which will be on New Year’s Eve when we welcome back the fabulous Barry Hammett Swingshift Band. Book Early! Bound to be a sellout! Keep looking at our web-site.
Photos by Lyn and Coll