International singing star and songwriter Christine Holmes aims to raise the standard of British talent from her academy, hidden within the heart of Westmorland, writes Karen Morley.

A magnificent country house (Flass) in the small village of Maulds Meaburn is now the Christine Holmes Academy of Recording and Performing Arts, where students from around the world come to stay for up to two years.

Christine explained: "I can remember the moment I decided to set up the academy. It was six years ago and I was over from America with a colleague holding auditions for a Las Vegas show in London. We saw 700 kids in five days and at the end of it I came to the conclusion that the standard of performers was poor. Out of the 700 who came we only found one person good enough.

"I could have trained them better than they have been trained and so I decided to set up a school a year later it was up and running."

Christine herself studied violin and piano in Manchester and was a member of the Manchester Youth Orchestra at just 11 years old. She moved to Solihull at 14 where she sang one night a week with The Applejacks pop group. She was spotted by their manager and taken to London at 16 years of age, chaperoned to the Embassy Club nightly and performed in a BBC Pop Club show called Gadzooks as a regular host and singer.

Christine said: "A theatrical agent spotted me and asked me to audition for the juvenile lead role of Charlie Girl in the musical comedy starring Joe Brown, Anna Neagle and Derek Nimmo. I got the part and performed the role for over five years and completed three series of Crackerjack by the time I was 21."

She embarked on a pop/country career and enjoyed hit records in Canada as a singer/song writer. One of her songs was recorded by Sir Cliff Richard in 1976, which gave him his first American hit record Devil Woman.

Christine is one of the few female writers to have charted two hit records in the same top ten. She produced No Charge for JJ Barrie that held the number one spot, while Devil Woman charted at number 5. She received Gold Records for both. For more than 15 years she wrote hits for other artists and jingles for TV and radio in America. Now she is grooming another generation of entertainers in a unique fame academy.

Christine said: "Today you have to be able to do everything to get work. Our aim here at the academy is to train our students to be all-round strong live performers.

"Other schools and colleges in this country are not getting their students to the standards demanded by the industry today."

The academy at Flass is now entering its third year and former students of the Christine Holmes Academy are enjoying huge successes around the globe in some of the biggest ever stage and club promotions.

Christine takes into her home 20 to 30 young people aged 16 to 30. And, from this year, she is opening the academy up to non-residential courses.

Teenagers from France, Sweden, China, Japan, and Italy as well as the UK come to Flass to develop their talent. The courses have only been advertised in The Stage newspaper before, but now Christine is opening up the academy to more talented people.

Christine said: "No other school in the UK offersone-and-a-half to two hours singing tuition per day. If you are a dancer, the chances are that by the time you are 30 you will have had a nasty injury. If you are an actor you will spend more time working at tables than on stage, but a singer can work all over the world and sing all their lives until they drop!"

Christine's approach to developing young talent is holistic helping and supporting the young people to believe in themselves and their talent. All the food at the academy is organic and, when weather permits, the daily yoga sessions are held in the open air.

The house, which had been in the Dent family for nearly 200 years, was built by Sir Robert Dent. Christine had been looking for a large property to use for her academy, as well as her home, when a friend told her about Flass. It was advertised in a Sunday newspaper and she recognised it as the place where she was sent as an evacuee during the Second World War. Christine said: "I knew it was perfect for the academy."

Christine's husband is a renovator of historical buildings and Flass has just had years of flaking paint sandblasted off and is looking more like it did in its grand, majestic past.

On June 24 and 25 the Academy will be taking over the Criterion Theatre, in Piccadilly Circus, London, to perform an academy version of Moulin Rouge, before coming back on June 28 to perform it outdoors in the gardens at Flass.

With almost 20 staff, made up of drama, singing, dance and music coaches, The Christine Holmes Academy is now working hard to put the Great back into British performing.

May 22, 2003 11:00