On Thursday 18th November, Ultimate Eurythmics were invited to spend a few hours at the legendary Abbey Road studios in West London, the home of the most famous studios in the UK, where bands from The Beatles, U2, Oasis recorded their albums, as well as the Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings soundtracks.

Dave Stewart was in the studio along with Glen Ballard and Bruce Joel Rubin (The original creator of Ghost), to record 4 tracks from the forthcoming sound track to Ghost The Musical which opens in Manchester March 2011 and London in June 2011.

The 4 tracks chosen gave the small audience an opportunity to hear each of the main characters to demonstrate their vocal abilities, and the performances were broken up with question and answer sessions with Dave, Glen and Bruce.

Following an initial drinks reception, the audience sat down and watched an introduction from the director Mathew Warchus who couldn’t attend, where we spoke very passionately about how much work and effort had been invested into the production, but also, how much they appreciated the feedback of the various investors and theatre critics and members of the press for the feedback from various workshops.

Colin Ingram (Producer – pictured above)  in person, then spoke more about how the production had come to fruition and its journey over the last 3 years and then introduced the original author of Ghost, Bruce Joel Rubin.  He spoke passionately about his work, and that he was very nervous at bringing Ghost to the stage, but after having spent time with Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, they knew that they had something he felt confident in.  He was also asked by Colin where “ditto” came from, a famous phrase in the film, where Sam can never say I Love You, he just says Ditto, he explained this came from his own personal life memories, and a girlfriend he could never say I Love You to himself, and he said sadly, he never got the chance to actually tell her.

After a video introduction of both Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, as featured below, they both took to the stage, along with for the first time in front of an audience, the cast: Richard Fleeshman (Sam), Caissie Levy (Molly), Andrew Langtree (Carl) and the previously announced West End regular Sharon D Clarke (Oda Mae)

Dave and Glen went straight into the first number called Here Right Now, accompanied by a small group of musicians on stage, featuring Richard, Caissie and Carl on vocals

A further 3 songs entitled were performed, broken up with brief interviews with each of the cast, and ended with a Q&A session from the audience to Dave, Glen and Bruce.

The track With You was a solo sung by Caissie soon after the death of Sam, Let Go was performed with Richard, Carl and Sharon, and took the story from Caissie dealing with Sam’s death, and Richard being the frustrated Sam, trying to communicate with Molly and then I’m Outta here, the final track featured the sensational Sharon D Clarke with her huge voice.

Glen and Dave explained how they felt the songs needed to help move the story on quickly, unlike a film, you cannot be in one location one second and cut to another, on stage you have to use the sets and songs to progress the story.  Bruce also explained that one of the reasons he wanted to do the musical was that on film he wasn’t able to develop the characters as much as he had wanted, but felt he was able to on the stage.  They also explained that Unchained Melody, the track the film is most famous for, would feature in the production, but would be used in a different way on stage.

As the session closed, we were invited to stay for drinks and to speak to the cast, the creative team and to Dave and Glen, and we were lucky to spend a few minutes each with Bruce, Dave and Glen as well as producer Colin Ingram, and had an opportunity to meet the cast.  Here are a few exclusive photos from recording.  Visit the official website for more info and how to get tickets for the show here https://www.ghostthemusical.com/