I don't mind admitting that I shed a tear as I watched four amateur performers playing at the Royal Festival Hall in the finale.
If you don't know what I'm talking about please please please look this show out and watch it from the start. The whole idea was genius in the first place. Take people who play the free pianos in railways stations and turn them into stars. But there was no need to do much turning because these people were super talented in the first place. At times they were beyond talented and I was in absolute awe at them.
The highlight was the concert at the Festival Hall. Their love of what they did shone through and was the perfect antidote to the peddling of talentless people and the pop conveyer belt that is perpetrated by some of those horrible talent shows like The Voice, Britain's Got Talent and the X Factor.
I have often commented on the hugely talented musicians who criss cross the country playing to audiences of a handful of people. In Norwich we had a monthly club called Grapevine which featured many of these artists. Musicians who had day jobs and went out on the road in evenings and when they were on holiday. Many were teachers who gave up their school holidays to entertain.
They entertained because they loved doing it and not because they wanted to be famous and earn shed loads of money (although I'm sure they wouldn't have turned either down).
Programmes like the Piano feature people with genuine mind numbing talent being assessed by performers with talent - Mika and Lang Lang who both came over as genuinely friendly people. They have the right to comment on performances because they are at the top of their particular fields of entertainment and are not just famous for being who they are - like Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden.
Sadly Grapevine is no more. It didn't return after lockdown due mainly to the fact that its venue in Norwich Guildhall shut down. But I have so many memories of excellent musicians who should have been famous but probably never will. Apart of course over a decade ago when the guy third on the bill was a ginger lad by the name of Ed Sheeran. I wonder what happened to him?
As for The Piano - I so hope they will have a second series, although keeping it quiet about two top musicians watching and assessing will no longer be possible. As for me, well I found the programme enlightening, enriching and thoroughly enjoyable and depressing.
The depressing thing for me is it showed just how inadequate I am when I sit at the piano and plonk away. My fingers just won't go that fast. It did teach me one thing though. Granddaughter Poppy has shown an interest in playing the piano and I have started trying to teach her to read music. I'm now going to stop doing that and just sit her down and let her play away. Sometimes you need to give a person the freedom to just express themselves and that is certainly true in many fields.