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Highland News & Media
  • 17/01/2025
Transcript
00:00We arrived here yesterday, had a lovely meal at a restaurant called The Mustard Seed. I had the
00:06venison, which was nice, and the pigeon to start, which was lovely. I can't wait to be here on the
00:143rd of April, this stunning venue, Eden Court, with a show that I've put together called Gareth
00:20Gates Sings Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I'm a big fan of Frankie Valli and his music,
00:27and so I've put together an incredible cast, all backed by a live band, and I can't wait
00:34for Inverness to see the show. My parents were big fans of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons,
00:40and so it was kind of drummed into me at a young age, and so to be able to put on a show with all
00:46those big hits all kind of crammed into the one evening of entertainment is going to be great.
00:51We're doing songs like Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You, Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like A Man,
00:57Sherry, to name a few, and it's the sort of show that gets everybody up on their feet,
01:05dancing and singing at the end. I'm writing a musical called Speechless about a guy
01:10that can't speak, and I've had the idea for seven or eight years now, but it took for us to go into
01:18lockdown to have the time to kind of sit down and write it. I wrote eight songs, took it to my friend
01:26who's a big West End producer, and he said, don't speak to anybody about this, I want to produce it,
01:33and he commissioned the piece. We found a great script writer, and we're now on our second draft
01:40of the show. We're doing a workshop at the end of this year, and hopefully we'll be on the West End
01:47next year, 2026, so very, very exciting, and I can't wait for the world to see that one too,
01:55to tell my story, to educate people on what living with a stammer is about. It's not just
02:02a repetition of sounds, it kind of shapes and moulds the person that you are and the
02:08decisions that you make in life, and I can't wait for the world to see that. I love performing in
02:13Scotland. I found the further north you go, the more sort of upfit the crowds are, so I'm really
02:19looking forward to being here with this show in particular. Yeah, I did a festival last
02:26May up here, which was great, always good fun to come up here to do a big festival like that,
02:34but to be doing a venue like this in a theatre show in such a prestigious
02:40theatre and space, yeah, I think it's going to be great. Yeah, Pop Idol was 23 years ago now, wow,
02:49but it was great. It was the first of its kind, well before X Factor and the likes, and so nobody
02:56really knew what it was or what it was to become, and so we went into this thing blind and not
03:03really knowing what sort of artists we were to become after that whole process. I was very
03:12fortunate that Pop Idol was there because of my speech, because of my difficulty with doing
03:19interviews and things. I think I'd have found it hard to make it as an artist the conventional way,
03:25so at least Pop Idol kind of followed my story and gave people an insight into what I'm about,
03:31because, you know, if you're investing into an artist you want to know a little bit about their
03:36personality and, you know, who they are as opposed to just their music, and so it was a perfect
03:43format for me, perfect platform for me, and some 23 years later I'm still treading the board,
03:49still touring. I've been very fortunate to continue to work. I've done a lot of musical theatre shows,
03:56shows like Les Mis and Legally Blonde, Joseph, Footloose, to name a few, and now Gareth Cates
04:03since Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I think one of the proudest moments for me was heightening
04:11the awareness of stammering. When I was a child I didn't know anybody else who had a stammer.
04:16It's a very lonely place. There was nobody in the public eye that I could say, well look, I'm like
04:22them, and that would have made things much easier, and so once I was given that platform on Pop Idol
04:28and most interviews I do I mention my speech because if I can inspire just one person to not
04:34kind of let it hold them back then great, and lots of people tell me that I've done that for them
04:41and inspired them to not let it dictate who they are, yeah, and that's great to hear. I'm just
04:50really, really excited to be up here with the show. For anybody who wants tickets you can either go
04:55to the Edencock website or go to www.garethcatesings.com and all the venues are on there, and I'm excited to be here.