Britain’s Got Talent finalist plays hospice benefit concert in Eastbourne

In the meantime Faryl joins the line-up for a night of music in Eastbourne – an evening with Bourne Chorus plus special guests Tom Ball and Ruby Skilbeck at the Royal Hippodrome Theatre, on Wednesday, November 30 at 7.30pm, an entertainment which will raise funds for Chestnut Tree House Children’s Hospice.

“The pandemic was a very strange time for all of us but luckily I was on this opera course. I'm going down a bit more of an opera route now rather than the crossover that I did when I was younger. So I was in education if you like for the worst of things which meant a lot of operatic productions on Zoom which was definitely interesting! It was very strange to have all my work completely cancelled but it was good to have a structure through the course.

“I'm just finishing my last year. I've got two more terms to go and then I go out to work. I had obviously been extremely lucky with a lot of concerts and the albums that I did with Decca on the back of Britain's Got Talent and I had an amazing experience. But I've got to the point where all my friends were getting degrees and I was thinking that I ought to get some qualifications too. Some people were saying that I was doing things the wrong way round! But I just wanted to give myself as many options as possible for the future and doing the opera course definitely is going to open doors.”

It has been fascinating and challenging to learn all the languages that inevitably opera is sung in: “Most people think that you learn German then you can go to Germany and speak it but most of it is rather like Shakespeare, written in very old language. But I now understand if I'm singing about love or death which are obviously the main things in opera!

“I came into it all having a lot of stage experience working with concerts and lots of different people and I realised just how much I've done but working in opera it is so lovely to be working as a team when I've done so much solo stuff and I was performing with a lot of older people as well so it's really lovely to be working with people my own age on this course. I was very fortunate to do all the albums when I was younger but I thought it was really about timing and about longevity and now I to be doing this for the future. I've got two more terms and then I'm off to work with a UK opera company that I can't say yet because we haven't signed the contracts!”

Memories of her Britain’s Got Talent experiences inevitably burn bright: “It's strange. It does feel like a different life but I'm lucky that I had all my family around me and my nana kept lots and lots of scrapbooks which are lovely to have. It takes you back. Otherwise I would just forget a lot of it.”

Faryl doesn't remember the pressure of it though particularly: “My parents talk about the one thing that really stands out for them which was when I sang at the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. My parents were in the top tier and seeing me walk on they just thought ‘What have we done getting her in that position?’ but they said that I just walked on and did it like it was nothing new. Now I would get much more nervous but as a child I just loved singing and it just felt natural. The really key thing was having my family around me and supporting me, a big family that were always very protective towards me. And the great thing was being with Decca because they worked very hard at realising that I was still very young and making sure that I was dressed properly and not singing songs that were wrong for my age and just to realise that I was still a child. They had a wonderful understanding and they were very protective too.”