Kiri Te Kanawa

The other highlight, can I talk about that? Please.

Was the 80th birthday celebration for Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, which, you know, I personally support that sort of thing.

I mean, Parliament is the House of Representatives.

So if you have an MP who is quite unique, then simply being able to record it by a notice of motion.

We've only got the one show, but looking forward to that.

On the Dame Kiri Te Kanawa stage, oh my goodness, making animal noises, being animals and enjoying a whole lot of songs that they'll know or they'll know by the time we finish, all about animals.

So it should be a blast.

Yes, I wonder what Animal Antics was about.

And a slightly bizarre mix of celebrities also took part.

I mean, among them there was, there was Christopher Reeve, Superman, John Cleese, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, the opera singer, Cliff Richard, Bill Wyman, Tom Jones, Gary Lineker, John Travolta, Meatloaf.

I mean, [laughs] you should look it up.

The list of celebrities who took part is quite extraordinary.

It was a, a very, uh, uh, a very specific visual and musical moment listening.

I think it was a recording of Kiri Te Kanawa.

It was Kiri, or it was Ricciarelli.

I don't recall, but they used the, the voice or if either of the two sopranos.

Well, most of it is free, but there are some ticketed events as well because mine is an example that's ticketed.

It's on the 2nd of October, and we're in Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's theatre, which is such an honour to be performing on that stage.

But I'm there with a live band.

I've not really performed with a live band before.

I mean, sure, if we feel threatened, we'll make a sort of a rasping sound by rubbing our heads against our thorax, but I wouldn't call it singing.

I mean, Dame Kiri's not losing any sleep over my abilities, you know.

But, of course, there's always someone who thinks they're the first one to ever say, come on, Boris, give us a song, or, you know, sometimes I'll be out in a tree just minding my own business and some wise guy will fly past and say, hey, mate, why don't you whistle while you work? Ha! Yeah, especially when they've had a few nectars.

Huh,

So I was like, I'm just gonna hang out on stage as the audience come in and sort of like greet them.

And that was really, and that sort of then slowly formed into me bopping and dancing on stage to then like me fully dancing and then that was all well and good while the venues were modest and then yeah I did it like the Kiri Te Kanawa which is 2000 seats and I was dancing for half an hour oh crikey and then I would do an hour 15 So it was like an hour 45.

Far out.

And I was sweating before I'd been like, hello.

How does it feel to be the subject of a documentary?

Well, there's a certain amount of embarrassment, but basically pure joy because of the crew that put it together, Brian Stauffenbill and Nicole Boland, who were the producers, and my dear friend, dear beloved friend, Dee Dee Wilsey, and other friends who helped underwrite it.

I'm so grateful to them because it was just a wonderful experience being with them and, you know, going through my life.

I was treated royally, spoiled incredibly, and it also gave me a chance to look back.

So we decided to kind of give that a little bit of a center stage and I also feel that I have two teenage granddaughters and I feel that life is so complicated for them and so difficult and to say nothing of all the children suffering all around the world and parts of the world that I know very little about except through the news but they're the victims of our senior muddling of, you know, world peace.

And so, plus the Center for Transcendental Meditation is in Fairfield, Iowa.

And my dear friend, Jim Meredith, who is, we are the solo artists, he is the pianist, introduced me to Transcendental Meditation, which I practice daily and It saves my life in many ways.

And I believe in it with my whole heart.