Mark Bunyan (born 1949) is best known as a cabaret artist, although his accomplishments also include being a national recreational trampolining medallist and many writing credits.
His story is told in the film Mark Bunyan: Very Nearly Almost Famous and he kept a diary which recorded his first impressions of the Pink Singers. In his speech at the Pink Singers’ 25th anniversary concert, he recalled that in early 1983:
Brian Kennedy, gay activist, journalist and all-round good bloke decided that London should have its own gay community choir. There were already several gay choirs, mainly male choruses, in the United States but none in this city… I was one of a very small handful of out gay musicians with any kind of public profile… I knew that starting a choir would be a big commitment and I wasn’t really that sure that I could spare the time but Brian was very persuasive and in due course on April 7th 1983, there was a well-advertised meeting at the Oval House in Kennington to which 29 people turned up plus Brian, myself and a noble pianist whose identity has disappeared.
At that first rehearsal, Mark taught the nascent choir two songs: a version of Frère Jacques with alternative lyrics (‘Homosexual, homosexual / Lesbian, lesbian / We are homosexual, we are homosexual / We are gay, we are gay’) and a piece of mock plainchant he’d written for the American gay protest-performance group, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, called ‘Veni’ or ‘I Come’. These, with the addition of Scarborough Fair, were the basis of the first public performance at the London Pride march.
There is, incidentally, a bit of a myth that the Pink Singers, as they became known after the second meeting, were formed to sing at that year’s Pride march. Though our first public appearance was at Pride – and at the head of the march I may tell you (no mayoral presence in those days) – the object was always that the choir would keep going as a community choir.
But Mark Bunyan’s career was taking off and he did not have the time to dedicate to a choir.
I’d told Brian and the choir, as it got going, that I was doing it for three months and three months only. No-one was quite sure what was going to happen once I left. On the very day that the three months were up, a man came up to me at the Sunday afternoon rehearsal in County Hall and told me that he’d just moved to London, had been conducting a choir in Salisbury (I think) and would it be possible to conduct the occasional piece. I looked at him for a moment and said “Better than that….”
That man was Robert Hugill.
Timeline datestamp: 07 April 1983
