From his early days in the 60s to leading the most successful independent touring show in the country, Trevor’s career is a masterclass in showmanship.
With the show currently on its 40th Anniversary tour, we sat down to learn more about the process of preparing for the new Autumn tour launching in August.
As we begin our chat, Trevor explains that he is "surrounded by his papers preparing for show 41. Preparation is everything. When we get to rehearsals, we know exactly what we are going into. If I do all the work beforehand, it makes it easier. I use the Guinness Book of Records as my Bible to go through everything relevant at the time."
For those unaware of this institution of music, comedy, and theatrics, and its 40-year history. Trevor describes the show as "anything that lasts that long has passed its audition, as it were, you've got to think, why would a show last that long? And it lasts that long because of the variety that we do. We deal in nostalgia from the 50s to the end of the 80s. So usually the first half is 50s and 60s stuff, and the second half is 70s and 80s. Each half is about an hour and 20 minutes. It's not long, so you have to be very careful what you pick. But we change it every year. It's a mixture of great songs. We have a multi-talented company that can play and sing pretty much anything big in pop during that time. We try to make a rock and roll variety show interspersed with impersonations, comedy sketches and humour. So the mixture of rock and roll, pop music and humour is very infectious, and the crowd loves the idea. They watch a little bit, they laugh a bit. They watch a bit, they remember a bit, and it takes them through this journey every year."
Keeping a show fresh after 40 years is no easy task. Trevor says that is "what has kept them going". Explaining that "we have a lot of pride in what we do. We're always thinking of how to bring a new production in and what we can do that we haven't done before, but not go into the B list of songs. It's not karaoke; it's well thought out and well reasoned. I'll give you an example. This next show that is coming up on the drawing board, we go back and look at early pop music. In the early 60s, the only place you could listen to pop music that was loud enough was the funfair. So this year we will feature the funfair and the music that went with it at the time. We are going to try to recreate this little piece for maybe 8 or 9 minutes. That will take people back to when they were kids."
How do you even begin with such a rich musical catalogue to dive into? Trevor tells me, "You have to remember I was there. I started in the 60s. I first got paid to play in 1963, but before that, I was a young teenage kid and knew all these tracks. Because I was in bands straight away, I know the register of the popularity of the songs. I call back that memory bank. I've been working out for a long time just on how we can group songs together that make sense, and take audiences back to that time that goes through to the end of the 60s, and then in the 70s. Each year is a challenge to make it different, but take the audience on the same journey, but calling in at different places."
Getting to go on his own nostalgia trip through these songs, Trevor explains that "I could probably do it on a computer, but I use the old-fashioned way. I'm sitting here with the Guinness Book of Records, which I have several editions of, and I thumb through the lot every year just to make sure I haven't missed anything. There's quite a long list of things we haven't done. Then it eventually comes down to a refined list, and then I talk to the guys. We'll say we want to do an opening medley, so where do we start? We have to start with the beginning of rock and roll. The guys and I sit down in a room and I've got a list of tracks that I think will work in this year's medley, and we sit down to work out how to stitch it together. That's the first process. Then we work through each section, bringing the singers in and working on the vocals. Then the guys go, go away and do work on their own arrangements. And so they make sure they're playing exactly what they need to play for each track. Then we come in for secondary rehearsals and work together. Then the lighting and sound guys come in and I give them the records because I want it to sound exactly like it would have sounded. They do their homework. The lighting guy and I work together to make it look good on stage. It's the process that happens every year."
The show isn't just music. The show blends comedy sketches and impressions of the era. "We try to put the comedy into the era or into the passage of where we are. There's no point doing modern-day comedy, which is never telling gags. It's just about observations. If you try to do that back in the 50s or back in the early 60s, that really doesn't work very well. Nobody really does gags any more, so we try and do things that were on TV at the time and make them funny."
Our chat turns to my own personal visits to the show. Trevor saying how I myself will have witnessed how "you'd have seen the show develop and how different people come in. We've definitely got the strongest cast now that we've ever had. Everyone is on it, and everyone understands their position. We are there to win the audience, that is the only thing on our mind. At the end of the night, the audience has to leave thinking that was fantastic and they want to come back and see the next version."
The show attracts a wide range of audience members, from people who were around in the era to younger generations. For Trevor, that is one of the key parts of the show. "It's a challenge, that is. I always ask younger people when we're out in the foyer doing the bucket collections after the show that they are too young to remember the music, but most say that their mum or their dad played it, and I listened to that. I think if I were to see a show, I would want it to be played well and sung well, and the whole thing put together well. Then the music to me, if you know the songs, then great, but even if you don't. This year we're playing Good Vibrations, and we make a pretty good fist and one of the most difficult tracks to reproduce on stage. Because we've got 8 vocalists on stage. Our keyboard player is dead crazy about The Beach Boys, so he put the piece all together. If we're doing covers of The Beatles or The Kinks or whoever, we want to be as good as any band doing the covers. Our guys sound fantastic, they sound and speak exactly like they should."
In approaching the 40th Anniversary tour, the show was originally billed as Trevor's Farewell Tour. This was a decision that he has since recinded and is now set to continue in the show for the foreseeable future. Trevor tells me, "There are two sides to it. The reason why I wasn't going to continue was family circumstances. The fact that I don't get to see my kids and my grandkids. I sort of realised they are growing up, but I'm not seeing anything. We are working 180 to 200 shows a year, with rehearsals or periods on top of that. Then my daughter suggested that when they moved house, they have a self-contained annexe that I could come live there. So that when I have days off, I can live there and be with the family. That made me change. The other thing, and it was never that I didn't want to do the show anymore. The relationship I have with Gary Anderson cannot be replaced and would be missed by our fans. We've been working together for 38 years. He joined two years after we started, so we have a rapport and an understanding. I know what he's going to say before he says it. I love it, it keeps me young. My mind is still active. I still very much direct the show, and I don't feel I've lost any capacity to do that. I defer to some of the guys on some of the musical arrangements."
Getting to meet people from the time is clearly something special to Trevor and the company. "We did the London Palladium in early February, and Bruce Welch of The Shadows came to see the show, and we met him, and he was very charming. We asked him if he wanted to play, but he can't anymore, but he absolutely loved the show. He said he'd never seen anything like this and he's seen a lot of stuff. He said the musicality of the show and the structure are what I loved. He invited me to lunch and we had a fantastic day. He showed me his original guitar. He particularly praised our Ollie, who plays guitar, saying that he has great feel and touch. That makes you feel great. That's an opinion we value very much."
Trevor recently celebrated his 80th birthday. "I am younger than Mick Jagger!" How does Trevor maintain the stamina for performing those 180 to 200 shows a year? He says, "It's the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd! You can't do less than give your best every night. We do know times are hard and money is tight. I've never had a problem with energy. I ride my bike 15 miles a day every day when I'm at home. I don't feel any different than I did 20 years ago. There will come a time when I do have to hang up the microphone. The guys don't think about it, and nobody treats anybody differently, except that I'm the boss. If I couldn't do it, I would say so right away. I don't want to be the old git on the end. We have a very compatible team; we spent a lot of time off stage together. It's quite unusual to have that after so long together. We have a great camaraderie together, and they value what they are doing. They know they are in the busiest show in the country. As soon as we put this show together, which comes out in August, and then the beginning of September, we start working on the Christmas show!"
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| Trevor Payne and Gary Anderson. |
To be performing in one show, preparing for the next, whilst also having eyes on the one beyond that is a real skill that Trevor and the team have mastered. "It has to be done. Christmas comes earlier every year. The pantomimes come in earlier. Days come by pantomimes started on Boxing Day. Adding in rehearsal time, we have to do more Christmas shows in November than in December because venues are booked up. We do about 40 Christmas shows a year, which makes up almost a quarter of our calendar. Again, how do you make a Christmas show different every year? We don't do what we've done the previous year. We don't do wall-to-wall Christmas; we're still doing the hits of the time. I love it."
It's clear just how much of a passion and a love he has for the show and for performing it, even 40 years down the line. To wrap up our conversation, he explained what he'd want an audience member to take away from seeing the show. Telling me, "we give them value for money, high quality, we can't be criticised on the quality that we do. We want people to leave feeling better than when they came in. People tell us they leave elated. It gives them a buzz. They've forgotten their worries for a few hours. That's our mission, and we do it every night."
As we wrap, I tell him that it's worth coming to the show to see his Mick Jagger impression alone. "It's become the law, I have to do it. It's fun, as a stand-up character. It is Jagger, but it's more like an old rocker talking. I make use of that."
That'll Be The Day tours throughout 2026. The 40th Anniversary tour runs until 12th June and the Autumn tour begins on 28th August. For full tour dates and venues visit https://thatllbetheday.com/
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