Snowdrop

Yes, it's brilliant Gareth will be doing something close to his home. I think this could be a really good part for Gareth, so it's great news.

It's not been on in the West End. I think there were a couple of performances of an earlier version of it, but not a full production, and it has probably changed. It looks like this production will be the first proper performances of the show, and if it works, and looks like it has legs, and is popular enough, it could transfer to the West End. That seems to be the intention. Hopefully there will be lots of press and tv appearances, and performances!

Have a great time Sophie!

I'm not worried. I'm disappointed. It greatly limits his choice, and a lot less things are possible because of it. I know a few fans who don't like to admit to being disappointed, but I know some are. We know Gareth enjoys doing panto, and gets a lot from it in terms of his speech etc, but I'm a fan of Gareth, the singer. Even if I could make it to see Gareth in Canterbury, I'd still rather he was doing something else that shows off his singing better. He couldn't do Wicked last year as rumoured, because he was supposed to be doing Hair (and Aladdin), and this announcement means he won't be available for the next cast change. It means he can't do any part in a main West End show until at least next February, because all of the big shows expect their cast to commit to more than a couple of months - apart from a few exceptional circumstances. There are also a lot of Christmas concert events in December, that Gareth is unavailable for, which I'd love to see him do. I see adverts for these shows starring some of Gareth's peers, and I wish I could see him in one of them. But that's never going to happen when he's stuck doing 12 shows a week in Margate! Gareth might be able to squeeze in a short stint in a touring production, or he might be considered if a show has a very limited run in the West End, with no plans to extend. Maybe there is some grand plan. Perhaps there is something brilliant lined up that happens to finish in the middle of November that will be announced any day - but having Sleeping Beauty announced first, it makes it look like that's all there is. If there is something else up their sleeve, they need to announce it soon.

I'm pleased for everyone who can get to this, but this will be another one I won't be able to get to. The combination of the location and time of year rules this out for me, so personally it is disappointing, as committing to another panto means he is ruling out doing loads of other things that I would have liked to see him do. I do know a lot of people enjoy Gareth doing panto, so I'm pleased for you, but I'd rather he took a year off from it, especially with Hair not happening. If Hair had gone ahead, then it wouldn't be so bad, but with that cancelled, I was hoping he'd be able to arrange something for later in the year, especially with him not going to Germany. Hopefully there is still time for him to do something. On a brighter note - this costume is definitely the best one so far!

I've updated the links in the first post to include the good quality versions of the show (and This Morning) on YouTube, so you may wish to add them to your favourites, or to a playlist - or to leave a comment/thumbsup.

Both very cute - thanks for posting. Just a warning - you've posted the location and date of the photo as a tag to this thread eternal, when I'm wondering if you thought it was a sub-heading? There isn't the option of a sub-heading any more, which is just as well IMO, as people seemed to think it compulsory to split the title across both boxes. If you want something as the actual title - just put it in the actual title box. (But if you intended it as a tag, fine - but some people are definitely putting parts of their titles in the tags so I thought I'd just say now)

But you had the gumption to approach him in the first place to ask questions, so he knew where to go when he wanted to share information.

Well done Val. You should have been an investigative journalist, following up on all these leads.

This sounds wonderful. Unfortunately I've already got plans for that weekend, or I'd have been there in a shot. A lot of my favourite songs and my favourite singers. :wub:

Someone on twitter the other day said something about Gareth going to be at a place called "Outrageous", and their location was Carlisle. There isn't anything on their Facebook yet, but they have announced they have Wagner there this weekend. I'd say this was a contender. http://www.facebook.com/outrageouscarlisle

Almost all of this stuff was in the various other threads, which made sense at the time we were discussing it, but this way if we want to check something, it's easy to find. It was lovely to have such positive press. I wouldn't have bothered including anything that was nasty, but I'm pleased to say that this time it all made the grade!

I don't think it counts as a rumour when you are simply reporting that something has been announced and giving a link. Rumour more usually describes information that is passed around with no obvious source that isn't possible to verify. It's the "I heard it from a man in the pub" type of story. In this case, you simply posted that it had been announced by the organisers that Gareth was involved. As it turns out, Gareth hasn't actually confirmed his involvement, but everything you wrote is true, and it was easy to verify by clicking on the links your provided. I like to think we're all bright enough to know the difference between something being formally announced by Gareth and his management, and something being announced by an event organiser, or an actual rumour on twitter. I've have missed several really good things if I'd not found out about them until Gareth's team formally announced them, especially all of the ones they never announced at all! However, I would never spend money on tickets or booking hotels unless I was confident the event was definitely going ahead and Gareth was definitely supposed to be there.

Perfect! Thanks. Added to the post with the Metro review.

I'm sure there is stuff I've missed, but hopefully that can be added in. There were a few pieces in the local papers that will be worth gathering together too.

And after the event, there was a nice review in The Metro. TV review: Stop My Stutter saw Gareth Gates help stammer sufferers overcome their vocal problems not through overblown set pieces but through simple steps, and was all the more effective for it. By Christopher Hooton - 27th February, 2012 Related Tags:Gareth Gates Gareth Gates was a man inspired to teach in Stop My Stutter (Picture: BBC) Had Gok Wan been attached to this programme he would have no doubt taken an approach to curing the stutter that involved shouting from a mountaintop and skipping naked down Oxford Street. Fortunately however, it was former stammerer Gareth Gates who was in charge, a man who clearly had a passion for helping others and who understood the simple steps that needed to be taken to solve the speech problem having suffered from it himself. Unsurprisingly it proved difficult to make a documentary that was insightful about its subjects thoughts when they were fundamentally unable to communicate them, yet you could still empathise with those enrolled to the McGuire speech programme where Gates teaches and the quick results his methods produced were nothing short of astonishing. Some 600,000 people stammer in Britain but the reasons behind it are rarely discussed, so it was interesting to hear the story behind each case, with causes ranging from a hereditary stutter to confidence issues. This being a BBC Three documentary there was the lurking sense that at times there was some pandering to those who may find the condition amusing, with the show focusing on the absolute worst stammerers, but hopefully even those who found some mirth in the situation were eventually moved by the students' vast improvements at the end. Our very own Sophie did a brilliant blog that's well worth a read: http://sophiebowns.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/stop-my-stutter/

Gareth was in the top trending list on twitter during his This Morning interview, then again in the evening when the documentary aired for a good few hours, and then during one of the repeats. The name of the tv show itself was also trending worldwide at one point, so a lot of interest from those watching. which I suppose is the nature of the niche channels like BBC3. And later a lot of people were watching it on the iPlayer.

And more in the tv mags. Two in particular had little features. What's on TV TV Choice

Feature in The Sun. http://www.thesun.co...am-of-fame.html Gareth Gates: Stutter nearly axed my dream of fame By LAURA CAROE Published: 27th February 2012 GARETH Gates endured hell thanks to stuttering – now he's helping others overcome the speech impediment. The singer has become a speech tutor because he does not want other people's dreams to be ruined like his own career in pop almost was. A moving documentary tonight, Stop My Stutter, charts the progress of a group of young people who sign up for an intense speech therapy course led by Gareth, who found fame on Pop Idol in 2002. And speaking to TV Biz, Gareth — a close runner-up to Will Young in the talent contest ten years ago — admits he would never have entered had he known he would have to talk on the hit ITV1 show. He said: "I thought I was entering a singing competition — I had no idea how much speaking I would have to do. "Once I did, it filled me with dread and fear and I had to just deal with it and do interviews. "I probably wouldn't have even entered if I had known how much speaking was involved." Gareth, now a tutor on the McGuire treatment programme which helped him conquer his own stutter, revealed he struggled sometimes even to say his name. He said: "It's the first thing people ask you, so the fear is already there. "I would call myself different names like Michael, or my middle name Paul, so I'm sure there were hundreds of people when I did Pop Idol thinking, 'I thought he was called Michael or Paul'." He would also pretend he had forgotten his school's name, preferring to look "stupid and thick rather than stammer in front of people". Gareth, who soared to stardom on the back of Pop Idol, said at his lowest point he was on the brink of becoming a recluse. But he eventually found solace in song, and said: "Music became my voice and I wanted to sing all the time simply because I was not able to speak, so it was my way to express myself." Such is his new-found confidence that Gareth said he would never say no to being an X Factor judge. In tonight's show, on BBC3 at 9pm, the participants have four days to learn how to fight their stuttering demons before making a speech in front of an audience.

There was also some chat on the radio - clips to go here.On "The Surgery" on Radio 1 with Aled <object width="512" height="138"><param name="movie" value="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf"></param><param'>http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><param name="FlashVars" value="config_settings_showUpdatedInFooter=true&config_settings_showPopoutCta=false&config_settings_showPopoutButton=false&config_plugin_autoResumePlugin_recentlyPlayed=false&config_settings_suppressRelatedLinks=true&config_settings_skin=black&config=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Femp%2Fiplayer%2Fconfig%2Exml&playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Fiplayer%2Fplaylist%2Fp00pj5jk&config_settings_displayMode=audio&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></param><embed src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/emp/external/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="512" height="138" FlashVars="config_settings_showUpdatedInFooter=true&config_settings_showPopoutCta=false&config_settings_showPopoutButton=false&config_plugin_autoResumePlugin_recentlyPlayed=false&config_settings_suppressRelatedLinks=true&config_settings_skin=black&config=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Femp%2Fiplayer%2Fconfig%2Exml&playlist=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk%2Fiplayer%2Fplaylist%2Fp00pj5jk&config_settings_displayMode=audio&config_settings_showFooter=true&"></embed></object> There was also a chat about the documentary the day afterwards on The Chris Moyles Show, as Dave and Aled both watched. ChrisMoyles28-02-12.mp3

There was a lot of good press and tv appearances associated with Gareth's involvement in the Stop my Stutter tv show, so I thought it would be good to have a record of them altogether. First of all clips of the show itself. These are now the better quality versions. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 And Gareth and Simon on This Morning

It looks like one of those signed photos of Gareth is now available on Ebay from the organisers, so those who missed out on the night can bid for it now. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GARETH-GATES-SIGNED-AUTOGRAPH-CHILDREN-EDEN-GALA-CONCERT-/270926916350?pt=UK_DVD_Film_TV_Autographs_CV&hash=item3f1480aafe#ht_500wt_1282