Thursday 19th September was an important evening for DU3A as it featured the first visit of our new theatre group - this time very appropriately - to our rather wonderful local theatre CAST. Please go on their website to see all the diverse shows they are offering up to March 2025!
We were a small but highly appreciative group of eight pioneers with well placed seats at the back of the Main Space stalls to see and, more importantly, hear the Band of the Royal Air Force College in Concert.
What an evening of high quality, well played music we were treated to - an impressive choice of pieces that really showed off the skills of the whole band, it’s different sections, individual solo musicians, and vocalists. The wide stage was full of musicians, very smartly dressed of course and ably conducted by Warrant Officer Robert Scullion and Flight Sergeant Neil Wharton.
They opened with a challenging piece by John Williams - ‘Summon the Heroes’. We knew then that we were in for a treat. The whole of the first half was designed to show off their virtuosity and it ended with an amazing rendition of Symphonic Dances from Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’.
After the interval the program contained many highly popular pieces starting with the RAF Swing Wing led by Sgt Duncan Opie playing numbers like ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ and ‘Song of the Volga Boatmen’. Then the whole band played the ‘Dambusters March’, ‘Danny Boy’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’. Of course we ended the night with the Royal Air Force March Past. There was a well deserved standing ovation after the expected encore - a thoroughly enjoyable evening.
CAST was fortunate to present this performance as it was a special concert by the Royal Air Force Music Charitable Trust to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Charity. It’s aim is to raise welfare funds through the performance of live music. Over the years over £100,000 has been raised to support the wider armed forces community including welfare support directly to Royal Air Force musicians and their families during ‘out of area’ deployments. This band is so prestigious that some members travelled to Normandy this year to take part in the D-Day 80th commemorations.

We hope our new theatre group will encourage members to try out types of show you wouldn’t normally go to see. This was certainly true in my case with this concert. I now know I’ll go to see this band again next time they visit our city. They were simply marvellous.
Our next venture couldn’t be more different- a matinee performance of A Christmas Carol by Northern Ballet Theatre at Hull New Theatre.
We’ll be seeing quite a lot of you there! The coach is booked and ready to go.