Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus holding out hopes for summer events

And who knows, they might even be back in the Dome next Christmas.

As chorus director Joe Paxton says, you have just got to be optimistic.

“The first part of this year is going to be a return to what we have had before, but I am slightly more hopeful about the second half of this year. You have got to be. Otherwise it would just be too depressing!”

But the fact is that the chorus, despite all the difficulties, has managed to stay together. It has managed to continue as a support and social focus which has gone beyond music-making, just as it always has done. And it has even managed to attract a few new members.

It is a considerable achievement as the chorus goes into 2021.

“For the first lockdown, we were in the run-up to a Fringe concert on a Eurovision theme. We were rehearsing a lot of Eurovision songs which was great fun.”

But they saw the signs and stopped a week before the actual lockdown: “I work with other choirs and the research was coming out that the virus was just going around choirs, so we stopped – and everyone was in panic mode, maybe a little bit too much. There was a WhatsApp group set up and there were hundreds of messages. It was odd for everybody.”

It became a question of deciding what to do: “Some other choirs shut down because they were made up of older people.

“But there is a huge side to the chorus that is not just about singing.

“There is a support side and a social side that for some members is maybe more important than the rehearsals and concerts. We had a meeting to decide what to do.”