BBC Proms: Audience Member Rescues Concert
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2017
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1974 during a live broadcast of Carl Orff's, Carmina Burana as part of the BBC classical music season 'The Proms', the principal baritone singer collapsed into the orchestra pit in a dead faint. A member of the audience stepped forward to sing the rest of the piece. Patrick McCarthy had only just graduated from music school, but became something of a national hero when he rescued the show. He describes the night he saved The Proms at The Albert Hall in London to Rebecca Kesby for Witness.
(PHOTO: Patrick McCarthy outside The Albert Hall, London 1974. Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this |
| 0:30.3 | BBC podcast gets underway here's something you may not know. |
| 0:34.4 | My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.3 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely |
| 0:46.0 | engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:54.2 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories. |
| 0:57.6 | And that's just a few examples. |
| 0:59.4 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected. |
| 1:02.6 | Find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 1:05.8 | Hello and thank you for downloading this witness history |
| 1:08.8 | podcast from the BBC World Service with me Rebecca Keesby, history as told by the people who were there. |
| 1:16.0 | And as the BBC prom season draws to a close, today we revisit a moment that's gone down |
| 1:21.0 | in orchestral folklore, the night a member of the audience took to the |
| 1:25.5 | stage to prevent an imminent musical catastrophe because the show must go on. Thank you. On a warm summer's evening in August 1974, the London Symphony Orchestra and chorus began their performance of Karl Orff's choral epic |
| 2:06.7 | Carmina Burana for the BBC classical music season known as the proms. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.