Gareth Malone on why people are desperate to sing amid pandemic

Choirmaster Gareth Malone says he saw "a real desperation for letting your hair down and being heard that I've not experienced before" when recruiting amateur singers to take part in his festive TV show.

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People "bit my hand off in a way that I've not really felt before" because many have been through so much and had fewer chances to get together during the Covid pandemic, he says.

Malone gathered NHS workers and members of the public to perform for BBC Two's Blackburn Sings Christmas.

In the programme, he stages a concert for several thousand people at the town's Christmas lights switch-on, which took place at the end of November, just before Omicron concerns took off.

"I felt the need was greater than I've had in previous series," Malone tells BBC News.

"That was really rewarding for me because you don't know when you rock up in these places whether it's going to feel like something rather silly or whether people are going to really want to get involved.

"From the two young girls right up to the elderly people who've been isolated, as soon as we called people up and said, 'We're going to do this, do you want to be involved?', they just bit my hand off in a way that I've not really felt before.

"I think that's because of the times we're living through."