Ashley hopes to follow in footsteps of talented dad
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A TALENTED Kincraig bagpiper came up against a "chatterbox Darth Vader", amongst other adversaries, as he attempted to make it to the live auditions of one of Britain’s biggest TV shows.
Ashley Newman (15), who performs as ‘Pipebomb’, gave it his best shot on Saturday in front of a judge from the huge ITV show, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.
The Kingussie High School pupil is following in the footsteps of his father, Dave, a chart-hitting singer who won Hughie Green’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’ show for six weeks in the 1970s.
Gifted musician Ashley set out on his own road to showbiz stardom at Edinburgh’s International Conference Centre, playing his bagpipes to rock tracks which he himself had laid down at a friend’s studio in Badenoch.
But as he admitted himself after the ordeal, the road to stardom can be a long and arduous one.
"We got there early in the morning to find the queue was really enormous, and being stuck behind a chatterbox Darth Vader didn’t make things any easier!" Ashley told the ‘Strathy’.
"Hundreds and hundreds of people wanted to show off their talents. There were so many that we didn’t get a big stage and a bunch of celebrity judges to perform in front of."
It was long into the evening before the champion bagpiper was called to audition, and only then did he find that there was no sound system through which to play his backing tracks.
Ashley said: "The adjudicator just had a little portable player and suggested we played my disc through her laptop.
"It was really tough because I had never done that before, and the bagpipes have no volume control. I couldn’t really hear my backing track and its two-part harmonies, so I just had to busk it and I have no idea what she made of it all. We’ll just have to wait and see."
The talented hopefuls won’t be told until February whether or not they have been chosen to go forward to the live rounds of the hit TV competition.
"I’m proud of him either way," said his dad. "I’m glad he’s had his shot at it, and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for him. It would be great to see him make the telly stages."
It was in 1972 that Mr Newman, now living in Aviemore, won the daddy of all talent shows, ‘Opportunity Knocks’, six weeks on the trot. He sang a version of ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ which took him to the dizzy heights of number 34 in the charts.
