I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall backstage at Saturday’s amazing Chime for Change musical Diva Fest at Twickenham stadium! Even though I was very content to be in the audience, it would have been fun to see the line-up of some of world’s most famous women – Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and more – preparing to go on stage: “Can I borrow your lipgloss Madge?” “You go ahead honey…” “Break a leg JLo” “Lovin’ the Louboutins B!”
The winners of Divadom (in my humble opinion) were J-Lo and Beyoncé followed closely by our Brit Queen Florence and the Machine – each know how to wow an audience with their impassioned and polished performances. Madonna, who wasn’t there to perform but to fundraise for a much needed school in Pakistan, was not to be outdone and spent a rather-too-long 10 minutes asking us to join her ‘revolution’!
The concert also featured breath-taking performances from Rita Ora, Jessie J and Ellie Goulding as well as appeals by the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Hollywood actors Jessica Chastain and James Franco.
Whilst we were busy ‘chiming’ on the Twickenham terraces with our Twitter feeds and iPads, a lot of the performers and visiting Hollywood royalty were confusingly welcoming a ‘time for change’ which, in hindsight makes more sense! Regardless of the semantics, this event, entitled ‘The Sound of Change Live’ has been seen by an incredible one billion people.
Despite its all-star line-up and reach, controversy has surrounded the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the whole event live which was reduced to an hour and 20 minutes. This decision was heavily criticised by Harvey Goldsmith, who promoted the show organised by the actress Salma Hayek, Gucci creative director Frida Giannini, and Beyoncé. The event was designed to launch a charity founded by the stars to "help millions of women and young girls around the world".
The BBC says it declined to broadcast the concert live because of the commercial sponsors involved, but the decision has been blamed on the fact that its budget is being spent on an Olympian style live broadcast of the Glastonbury Festival for the next week. That said, lest we forget, getting your message out to one billion people to promote education, health and justice for girls and women worldwide is no mean feat, with or without the BBC!
My only criticism is that inevitably more attention was paid to how the event looks on television, rather than playing to the live audience in Twickenham. Yet we felt we were made to feel part of something, even Madge’s revolution! I loved seeing so many iconic female acts perform on one stage and it is important to remember why we were there.
I attended with one of our beneficiary charities, Refuge, who do such great work supporting victims of abuse and domestic violence, but I’d like to leave the last word to Sarah Charlesworth who wrote this on Twitter: “The @EverydaySexism video at #chimeforchange made 50,000 people go silent. It was so powerful and showed just how incredible the project is.”
Lynne Parker
Pictured top to bottom: Jennifer Lopez; Salma Hayek, Gucci creative director Frida Giannini and Beyoncé; Florence Welch.
