TV Interview with Gloria Hunniford at the Palace Theatre London (1997)
| G |
Michael, I should imagine it´s a real deja vu sitting here at the Palace Theatre. |
| M |
Yes, it´s 12 years ago of my West End debut here at the Palace doing Les Misérables. Lovely to be back. |
| G |
People always talk about your voice being a god-given gift. You have never had a formal training and so it is in a way like a gift from god. Do you think of it like that? |
| M |
Absolutely, it´s a great gift. There´s no reason why I should have it, in fact there´s 20 reasons why I should not have it. I don´t guard my voice particularly. The way I sing, I dont´t sing from throat, I sing from my heart, from inside. Especially when you ´re singing a song that means so much to you personally like a song I do, "The Rose", which I recorded and released as part of our money raising efforts for Research into Ovarian Cancer and when I go on stage I think of Angela, Cathy McGowan, my other half, her sister-in-law died of Ovarian Cancer, shocked us all completely. We wanted to do something about it. This song became our focal point for the charity. So when I go on stage and I sing that song I always dedicate it to her and truly believe she´s listening, she´s there, she´s part of it. I´m not a believer in heaven/hell you know. I don´t know, but at those moments on stage when I sing it there´s a definite spirituality to it. |
| G |
Seeing you at once we were talking about you´re having a very sweet life and in another you just mentioned Cathy´s sister-in-law died from Ovarian Cancer. How does it affect you as an individual? |
| M |
It´s the greatest level. We got the news of her illness the day Cathy and I moved into our house. So we had all this wonderfully. I was about to go out on tour, the album is no. 1, everything could not have been better and it was if someone had said: Look, this is reality. You know this comes and goes as indeed it does and it matters, it´s important, but, if something truly tragic happens it just puts things into perspective. |
| G |
Cathy is a very religious girl and I´m just wondering how much you talked about the sadness of the whole situation, the grief and it all? |
| M |
I found it was great talking to Cathy ´cause her faith is so strong and she has such conviction and she drew such strength from it. I actually envy that in a way, because of course she was in terms well inside, but she had a focal point to her religious belief to help her through it. It´s a very personal thing, but it certainly helped her and it helped me knowing that she had that to lean on. |
| G |
Do you ever pray? |
| M |
It´s interesting, we talked about that the other day. Not to the Lord or Lady or anything like that. I suppose when you say you pray, I´m thinking of the formal way you ?? way on your knees. I don´t do that, but yes you do or I do refer to something more powerful and ask for strength from somewhere, yeah. |
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