Angellica Bell's Top guests of 2022
Last updated 6th Jan 2023
Every weekend Angellica Bell is joined by a whole host of great guests for weekend brunch on Scala Radio.
Angellica presented a special end-of-year show looking back at some of the guests she’s welcomed into the Scala Radio studio over the last 12 months, including conversations with singer song-writer Fleur East, actor Christopher Eccleston and Laura Mvula.
If you missed Angellica's show on 31st December 2022, don't worry, you can listen back here:
Also, find out what some of her guests had to say when they joined her on the show over the last 12 months below.
Angellica Bell's favourite guests of 2022:
Robert Lindsay
"We were in that situation last year (2021) when we started rehearsing this when they were very, very strict with our social distancing, with our masks, with our COVID testing every day. And to do a romantic musical was very difficult when you couldn't physically touch for the first three weeks of rehearsals, which is very strange. And then came the announcement we suddenly could touch, which was such a breakthrough and a great relief to everyone.
"I can't think of a first night that I've experienced like that opening at the Barbican last June when the orchestra struck up. I looked around and there were literally everyone weeping. Musicians, dancers, singers. Makeup, wardrobe, lighting, technicians, stage management. It was just so moving when we all realized that we were back. And a lot of us were thinking, perhaps, you know, certainly people of my age thinking maybe hit a career as are finished."
H from Steps
"Doing Dancing on Ice gave me a platform to do incredible amounts of good. I'd done so many shows over the year. Partner based shows - reality shows, or skill-based shows that required a partner. And I had always asked to be represented in my authentic way, but I'd always get shot down. "it wasn't for us. This wasn't right. We're not ready for that".
"And I got the call for Dancing on Ice. I got the job and it been on my bucket list for so many years. I tried out for the show three times before. It was literally at the top. So, to be represented in that way on a national television show and to be the first in the UK to do it was just immense. It felt like I had come home. It felt full circle."
Ulrika Jonsson
"In the early stages of my childhood, I lived with my father in Sweden. His dad, my grandfather sang in the Swedish National Opera. So, we had a lot of classical music. We just lived in a council house. There was nothing fancy about my life at all. But I was surrounded by a lot of classical music.
"For me, music is so, so emotive that in fact, a few years ago I couldn't listen to any music at all. I was going through my divorce, and I knew that if I would hear a song or put a song on, I felt I might crumble because I really take music seriously. You're listening to lyrics or certain notes, that really, really touch you.
"I mean, music is just amazing, but when I came through that stage and started to listen to music again, I started listening to music from the nineties, and it just it was just an amazing sort of transformation."
Tom Read Wilson
"I don't believe in many things, but I do believe in kismet, and I do believe in serendipity... And that's a gorgeous word. By the way, do you know about the provenance of that? There were three princes of serendipity, and they went out on a huge treasure seeking mission and they never, ever found the treasure that they set out to find.
"But en route, they accidentally found three or four wonderful things that they ultimately thought was more valuable than the treasure that they were in pursuit of. So hence serendipity, these sort of wonderful, happy accidents along the way."
Ore Oduba
"So, one of the shows that I watched a lot of in lockdown was The Crown. I realized how much of a royalist I am and how much I'm obsessed with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. And it might sound strange to a lot of people asked, but I remember doing the royal wedding for Harry and Meghan in 2018, and it was just something about those moments when the entire country comes together is so spectacularly special.
"And this music was played at the moment that Elizabeth the second was coronated when she came to the throne. And it is handle's Zadok the priest. And I think it's just a reminder of how special those moments are and that we must celebrate them when we can."
Fleur East
"So, my parents, they used to play music through headphones onto my mum's stomach when she was pregnant with me. I am convinced that that's what sparked my love for music and got me to sing and gave me rhythm and everything. And in our house, I used to listen to music every single day and it was such an eclectic range of music because my mums from Ghana, West Africa, so we used to listen to like highlife music, hiplife like music that was in her mother tongue.
"And then we used to listen on the flip side to Van Morrison that my dad used to play. We'd have like Stevie Wonder, Madonna, just all sorts in the house. And classical music funnily enough, probably the first classical music I heard would have been on my keyboard. So, my parents bought me a keyboard when I was three. We used to sit there and just make up songs on it. When you go to the demo mode, and it was always like a classical piece and that would just be... So, I probably heard a lot of classical music from early on."
Christopher Eccleston
"Well, classical music... I grew up, like I did with poetry, feeling that it didn't belong to me. I found it intimidating.
"The closest we got to classical music in my house was my dad was interesting because he was obsessed with Paul Robeson, so he had a classical element to his voice. Because of his range, he would sing spirituals. He would sing pop songs. I mean, my dad clearly had a sophisticated take on music that he would spend Sunday mornings listening to this famous black communist from America singing these spirituals about slavery.
"And listening to that music made me understand my dad a bit more or feel my dad a bit more. I remember thing when I heard, Marvin Gaye's What's going on? In 1971, I was seven. I remember thinking, Is this classical music?
"Because it was so dense and orchestral. And complex. I mean, of course, what Marvin was using was black classical music, which was a jazz element. But I was like, wow, classical music. You can dance to. Politics you can dance to!"
Laura Mvula on falling in love with Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos
"I can bop my head to this, the same way I can to the latest Kendrick Lamar album. It's the same spirit. I just remember the moment because, specifically the way that piece is written. It was the first time I was hearing... It's like a homophonic thing. So, everything's moving in the same direction. The whole organism... the whole vehicle's moving in one space.
"But there's maybe five or six things happening at once. So, it's an overload. It's a sensory overload. That's what happened to me. So, I'm listening and I'm experiencing, but I'm also playing. And I'm not just playing. I'm playing a secondary part, which is harmony, which is the best bit of the sandwich. So, if you have a Five Guys sandwich, a burger, which is my vibe. It's the beef and the gherkin.
"Like when you experience that as a kid, there's no going back. It's like the obsession grew from then. I want to be in an orchestra. I just want to be a part of an orchestra. It didn't matter what the role was. I never dreamed that it would be eventually writing for orchestra or singing in front of an orchestra of my own compositions. But this piece was where the seed was born."