Newbury composer writes, teaches, organises and performs in a concert of her own original music

Being Human: An evening of original music written and composed by Hannah Maskell
at St Nicolas Church, Newbury
on Saturday, July 20

Review by STUART HONEY

“Funny, Sad, Touching, Mad”

Write, teach, organise and perform in a concert of your own original music! That’s what Hannah Maskell set out to do and boy did she deliver.

Combining a large choir and soloists she delivered a professional and intimate evening of entertainment to showcase our local talent. All but two of the 17 songs had been written by Hannah from her first musical It’s Complicated, and new unnamed musical.

Hearing musical numbers for the first time was a bit daunting but as we moved through the numbers, aided by narration the themes flowed into the audience. The first half started with Love and ended with Two Halves, two big numbers involving all the cast and were powerful and thought provoking. Other highlights were No Matter What and I Miss You duets.

The second half started with What do you do? typifying Hannah’s cheeky nature about siting down to see a show realizing they should have had a “pee” first. The physical and musical performance for this was excellent.

Through the second half we began to feel for the characters coming through in Congratulations, Take The Wish and Love Me.

The final song, Being Human, summed up the overall theme of be yourself, support each other’s differences and follow your dreams.

The pianist James Ellicott and cellist Alicia Holland Pillado enhanced many of the songs especially with the beautiful acoustics and atmosphere of the church.

I would like to name all the people in the concert not only for their talent but their obvious hard work and support that they have given to Hannah, however there are far too many, suffice to say you know who you are and be proud to be part of this event.

I do though need to say that Hannah is a force of nature, immensely talented, enthusiastic, warm, and inclusive. For a people of a certain age, think Victoria Wood and Pam Ayres all rolled into one. For others just enjoy the ride.