NHS gets a little help from its friends for The Big NHS Singalong live on ITV

Published: Fri 15 Jun 2018

NHS gets a little help from its friends for The Big NHS Singalong live on ITV

NHS Choir, staff and music stars attempt record breaking live singalong to celebrate the NHS on its 70th Birthday

A brand new one-off ITV event will capture the NHS Choir being joined by popstars and celebrities in a unique, live record-breaking attempt celebrating the NHS 70th anniversary.

Endemol Shine North will produce the 90-minute special following the mammoth task of assembling a choir mixing unsung NHS heroes from all over the country with singers from the pop world to try to smash the world record for the biggest live singalong ever to be broadcast with a landmark performance of iconic Beatles classic With a Little Help from My Friends, which will be shown live on ITV.

Presented by Ashley Banjo and Sara Cox, the 90' spectacular will follow NHS Choirmasters Doctor Katie Rogerson and NHS worker Joe Blunden, capturing all the frantic efforts in the build up to the big singalong and the live action.

The show will hear exceptional stories from right across the NHS, including why some of the popstars joining the choir owe a debt to the NHS. It will meet extraordinary patients and NHS staff and deliver plenty of surprises and feelgood moments from up and down the country's hospitals as they aim to recruit thousands of voices to swell the ranks of the Big NHS Singalong choir.

Sara and Ashley will be with the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir and popstars, many of whom have a particular and personal reason to pay tribute to the NHS, singing live from Abbey Road Studios, where With a Little Help From My Friends was originally recorded. And their number will be swelled to - hopefully - record breaking levels by other NHS choirs and staff joining the broadcast in hospitals and locations right across the country, including a group coming live from the Coronation Street cobbles.

Also filmed at Abbey Road Studios, The Big NHS Singalong will capture the excitement as the Choir and NHS staff, along with a host of stars, record the song for a single in aid of NHS charities. This latest mission into the charts follows the NHS Choir's 2015 hit single A Bridge Over You', which beat Justin Bieber to that year's UK Christmas number one spot.

The track is being produced by Brit Award-winning and Grammy nominated Jon Cohen and Timbaland.

Katie Rogerson said: We wanted to do something which the public could really get behind. We don't have long to pull this off and we will be scouring the NHS for singers and musicians and hopefully we'll persuade a few famous faces to join us.

Joe added: We are determined to both smash that live singalong record and get to number one!

Sara said: It is so exciting to be part of this challenge to break a world record and celebrate the amazing work of the NHS. We'll be travelling the length and breadth of the UK recruiting people to join in to make sure we smash that record and show everyone working in our NHS how much we appreciate them.

Ashley said: We want to recognise and celebrate the hardworking and dedicated staff who keep the NHS going everyday and highlight the human kindness at the heart of the incredible care and treatment they make available to every single one of us.

The Big NHS Singalong Live is commissioned for ITV by Priya Singh, Commissioning Editor and Sue Murphy, Head of Factual Entertainment.

Priya Singh ITV Commissioning Editor for Factual Entertainment said: We want to show the dedicated people who make us love the NHS just how much we appreciate them with a big, celebratory event for their 70th birthday. It promises to be a unique, uplifting show packed with plenty of surprises.

The executive producers for Endemol Shine North will be Rick Murray, Kevin Mundye and Sarah Thomson-Wooley.

The charity single will be released following the live event and all proceeds will go to the NHS Charities Together, a group of more than 100 NHS charities that have come together to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the NHS and raise awareness of the work that NHS charities do to support the NHS.

Note to editors

On the night of the singalong, hundreds of independent marshals working to strict Guinness World Record guidelines will be present to assess if the record has been broken.

The record for Most People Singing Live on a Radio Broadcast' is currently held by Barclaycard presents British Summertime (UK) which saw 6,904 people singing Let It Go' in Hyde Park, London on the 29th of June 2015.

Following the singalong, the song will be available to download on all major digital download sites.

For more information on the single please go to www.nhsvoices.com.

For more information on the NHS Charities Together please go to https://nhsbig7tea.co.uk/search

About ITV

ITV is an integrated producer broadcaster and the largest commercial television network in the UK. It is the home of popular television from the biggest entertainment events, to original drama, major sport, landmark factual series and independent news. It operates a family of channels including ITV, ITVBe, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 and CITV, which are broadcast free-to- air.

ITV is also focused on delivering its programming via the ITV Hub, mobile devices, video ondemand and third party platforms. ITV Studios is a global production business, creating and selling programmes and formats from offices in the UK, US, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the Nordics and the Netherlands. It is the largest and most successful commercial production company in the UK, the largest independent non-scripted indie in the US and ITV Studios Global Entertainment is a leading international distribution businesses.

About Endemol Shine North

Endemol Shine North, part of Endemol Shine UK, is a factual TV Production company based in Manchester. It is head

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