Gonna make you a star

Gonna make you a star, originally uploaded by Colonel Blink.

I was witness to one of those moments that the old MGM musicals used to love. The impresario comes up to the poor but talented musician and asks him onto the show. "Stick with me and next year", he says, "Your name will be in lights".

If it had been a movie he would have be wearing an astrakhan coat, be accompanied by a platinum blonde (who later falls in love with the musician) and sucking on an impossibly long cigar. The climax of the scene would have been the buskers, scantily clad passers-by and a comic policeman or two breaking into a Busby Berkeley style routine down London Street, across The Gentleman's Walk and into the provisions market. (There is scope here for Carmen Miranda wearing a hat made of two pineapples, a pear and a bunch of grapes to emerge from one of the remaining Fruit and Veg stalls)

The more prosaic reality on a rainy November afternoon in Norwich is that he is asking them if they would be interested in appearing in one of the three acoustic gigs he organises around local pubs and clubs every week.

But it was still a magic moment and they were delighted.