Poor Peter Auty - 2021

Failures & Repetitions - Five Years Archway - London 2021

Curated Aled Simons and Tom Cardew

Gwenba, Katarina Ranković, Bláithín Mac Donnell, Aled Simons, Tom Cardew.

 

>> Failures & Repetitions live stream compiled and produced by Aled Simons

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I was going to try and write like a funny, clever and poetic thing about poor Peter Auty, the kid who actually sang Walking in the Air in the film The Snowman. I was going to repeat the refrain: poor Peter Auty, poor Peter Auty. Like poor Peter Auty, poor Peter Auty—no-one remembers your song or something. You see Aled Jones only sang on the re-recorded version for a Toys “R” Us ad in 1985 which was the version that gained commercial success. They asked poor Peter Auty, poor Peter Auty to do it but his voice had broken—I always find that a funny turn of phrase really—his voice wasn’t “broken” obviously. His vocal register had become lower due to the larynx growing thicker and larger as a result of puberty. Imagine a call centre worker telling their boss that they can’t come in today because their voice is broken—ha ha ha, you’re fired.

 

So poor Peter Auty, poor Peter Auty was actually left off the original film credits until they remastered the film in 2002. In that same year poor Peter Auty, poor Peter Auty played Don José at The Glyndebourne. The Theatre critic Rodney Milnes OBE—who incidentally was awarded his OBE in 2002 for services to journalism and music, which I always find sort of weird that people are awarded these things for services to this and services that when they’re usually being paid top dollar to do so. Anyway, Rodney Milnes OBE described poor Peter Auty’s performance as ‘beautifully sung, deeply troubled’ poor Peter Auty.