Tenor at the Movies

by Sharon MawerThe title does not give the whole story of what this album was about, for Jonathan Ansell, although not exactly a household name was a former member of the band G4, the 2004 X Factor runners up who had three top 30 albums until their acrimonious split in the summer of 2007. Rather than cover a selection of songs from the movies which would probably have been sung by just about everyone in this popera genre, Ansell chose for his debut solo effort to record a set featuring a choice of songs that were to say the least, rather unusual, not the usual crop of songs one associated with the movies, including tracks from Gladiator (Now We Are Free), O Brother Where Art Thou (Down In The River To Pray) and Si Un Jour (Manon Des Sources). But there were also some songs that weren't originally songs at all, but themes from the films with vocals written afterwards, especially for this occasion, My Own True Love, the theme from Gone With The Wind, Parla Piu Piano-The Godfather, Un Giorno Per Noi from Romeo And Juliet on which he was joined by fellow popera singer Hayley Westenra and Race To The End which was the theme to Chariots Of Fire but with such contrived lyrics all about freedom, running and racing to the end, that made one long for Vangelis' instrumental. One criticism was that every track after a while sounded the same, all sung immaculately with the backing orchestra, but Jonathan Ansell will have to learn how to vary the tempo and style or his career may be even shorter than his former band's was.