The 23rd West Sound Burns Supper
The 23rd West Sound Burns Supper was held on Saturday 19th January, 2008, at the Thistle Hotel in Glasgow. The event has already been hailed as a great success and an excellent night was had by all. You can hear highlights of the evening between 8pm and 10pm on Burns Night, Friday 25th January.
See the pictures from this year's event HERE
Here are some quotes about this year's event:
"What a wonderful show, the organisation, the top table, the Musicians and Artists were simply fantastic"
"...you have every right to pat yourself on the back because it was a very happy evening and that doesn't just happen by accident."
"You should be very proud that...you and your team organised such a superb event, well done!!"
"We and our guests had a fantastic evening on Saturday, the entertainment, speakers, singers were all first class!"
"Speakers were great, music and singers were fantastic and the night had a touch of class and professionalism to it."
"First class, def the funniest Burns Supper I’ve ever been to"
The West Sound Burns Supper is brought to you by our principal sponsor Rolls Royce, The Stagecoach Group and support sponsor Ardgowan Homes.
Performers for the 23rd West Sound Burns Supper were:
A Special performance of Tam O'Shanter - Karen Dunbar
Karen was born in Ayr. She was originally a DJ for ten years but turned to comedy and very swiftly achieved remarkable success on the radio sketch show Chewin’ the Fat with Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill. The show (and Karen) moved to television and Karen continued to enjoy success in that medium. A further three series followed along with the phenomenally popular Hogmanay specials which are watched year-on-year by over a million viewers north of the Border.
Now one of Scotland’s favourite comedy actors and widely regarded as Scotland’s funniest character comic, Karen has four series of her own sketch show under her belt. As a result of that show she has been nominated for the prestigious Rose d’Or awards and also for the Best Comedy performance.
Karen has also made an impact with her many live theatre shows - she has sold out the King’s Theatre in Glasgow during the International Comedy Festival for the last three years running. She has also proved to be a very popular stand up comedian and is touring extensively this coming autumn, after appearing at the Outsider Festival and also the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
This very versatile performer is also an accomplished singer and indeed she won a Burns Singing Competition eight times when she was at primary school. Now she is well known for her fantastic rendition of Robert Burns’ most famous tale, Tam O’Shanter.
Karen Dunbar on The Karen Dunbar Show
Immortal Memory - Russell Wardrop
Russell Wardrop is Co-founder and Chief Executive of award-winning Kissing With Confidence, a specialist communication skills training company. He is a dynamic, charismatic speaker who is passionate about communication.
An internationally experienced keynote speaker, trainer, coach and facilitator, he works at the highest levels of government, academia and commerce with high performing individuals and teams to make them passionate, charismatic and unforgettable communicators.
Russell is a Scotsman who has lived all his life in the west of Scotland, and for many years in Ayrshire, Burns country. He is a Director of Sandyford Burns Club and his Immortal Memory is a unique roller-coaster ride through what he considers to be The Bard’s best work: his poetry to the lassies. Guests were certainly educated and entertained as the secrets of Burns success were revealed. But we also laughed and cried as the life, loves and words of Scotland’s favourite son were compared and contrasted with the feeble courtship efforts of modern man.
Russell Wardrop
Toasting the Lassies - Robbie Glen
Robbie taught in Blantyre for a year before joining the prison service in 1969 as an Assistant Governor. He went on to be Deputy and Acting Governor of Barlinnie prison in Glasgow as well as Governor of Dungavel prison, Castle Huntly Young Offenders Institution and Cornton Vale Women's Prison, before retiring from the Scottish Prison Service in 1996. Robbie has spoken at Variety Club Tribute Dinners for Lord Dickie Attenborough, Jimmy Logan and Ally McCoist and a Lord’s Taverners’ Tribute Lunch for Sir Harry Secombe.
Robbie Glen
Replying for the Lassies - Linda Ormiston
Linda Ormiston is one of Britain’s most versatile artists. Equally at home in opera or cabaret, she has sung with most of Britain’s opera companies and further afield in Europe and also in Canada, USA and Japan. She has appeared at many of the major International Music Festivals - Aix en Provence, Salzburg, Buxton, Como, St. Magnus, Covent Garden and a record seven successive years at the Edinburgh Festival. In 2005, she toured Britain with Welsh National Opera in a new Centenary production of The Merry Widow with Lesley Garrett, which was broadcast on BBC 2. In 2007, she was the guest soloist with Manchester’s Halle Orchestrao for a Burns Night spectacular in January; opera performances saw her in France in March and at the Buxton Festival in July and her concert diary has taken in all parts of Britain. In 2008, she returns to France for performances of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress and will be a soloist on The National Trust for Scotland cruise to St. Petersburg. She is also a voice teacher for the Music Theatre Course at the Dance School of Scotland at Knightswood School in Glasgow.
She received an honorary doctorate of Music in 1999 from St. Andrews University and In 2001, was awarded an OBE for sertvices to opera,.
She fell into after-dinner speaking a number of years ago when againist all odds, her expectations and four other speakers, she sneaked in with the “female sympathy vote" and won a Wits Dinner in Aberdeen. Since then, her dulcet speaking and singing tones have been heard up and down Britain at numerous corporate events and prestigious dinners. She is always in great demand in January when she is regularly called upon to reply on behalf of the Lassies at a Burns Supper where she attempts with finely honed detail and as much sympathy as she can manage, to highlight some of the minor faults of the male sex!
Linda Ormiston
Toasting The Haggis - John Perry
John is fifteen and is a fourth year pupil at St Aloysius College in Glasgow. He lives in Kilmacolm with his mum and dad and has two older sisters, Nicole(25) who is a doctor and Kirsten(24) a dentist. John enjoys all aspects of school life and hopes to follow in the footsteps of his sisters with a career in Medicine. He plays rugby for his school and is a member of the Athletics team where he specialises in shot-putt and discus.
He has successfully taken part in a large number of speech contests and festivals since he was three years old and has a particular love of the works of Burn's. John is a former Junior Burnsian of the Year and has performed and spoken at a number of Burn's Suppers.
Aside from all of this he is an avid watcher of Top Gear and The Simpsons , he enjoys reading ,the Playstation3 and he sleeps a lot!!
John Perry
All Angels
Four very different teenage girls. One shared passion for music.
MELANIE NAKHLA, CHARLOTTE RITCHIE, LAURA WRIGHT, DAISY CHUTE
In the autumn of 2006, the four teenage members of All Angels were a phenomenon-in-waiting, about to deliver their debut album to an unsuspecting world. A year later, they can justly claim to be the World's First Female Classical Supergroup. They performed at the Classical Brits, where their debut album was nominated for Album Of The Year, and were watched by 10 million viewers when they sang in front of the Queen at the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. They've shared stages with Russell Watson and Katherine Jenkins, and have unleashed their collective lung-power in support of the England rugby team at several crucial international matches. Their first album was the UK's fastest-selling debut for a classical act, and won them a platinum disc. Now they're eager to find out if their follow-up can do even better.
All Angels
The West Sound Burns Supper, now in its 23rd year is considered the best Burns Supper in the world and one of the most highly regarded events in the Scottish Winter Calendar. The event is one of the first in the Burns Calendar allowing us to record the evening, edit for transmission and broadcast on Burns Night, 25th January.
Organised by the local radio station from the bard’s hometown of Ayr and held in Glasgow, the event takes all the usual ingredients of a Burns Supper but adds its own “joi de vivre” to create an atmosphere filled with passion, compassion and good cheer as the gathering remember the genius that is Robert Burns.
Artists are sought from the world of theatre, politics and music to ensure that you will experience a Burns Supper of the highest calibre and one that you and your guests will talk about for years to come.
While it’s roots are firmly in Scotland, West Sound has staged their world famous Burns Supper in various locations around the world and they include London; Denver, Colorado and staged the first ever Burns Supper in the Kremlin in Moscow.
So a great pedigree indeed, date for your diary for 2009
Saturday 17th January, Glasgow Thistle Hotel.
Bauer Media