A very special musical is to take place in Newcastle. David Whetstone talks to Glorious creator Rajni Shah.

MUSICALS tend to conjure up images of chorus lines and musical showstoppers, of flamboyant costumes and big budget sets.

Often there’s a larger-than-life producer behind the scenes, perhaps chewing on a big cigar as he counts the cash.

Hmm. Rajni Shah, arresting soul though she is with her close-cropped hair, doesn’t fit the bill at all.

And yet she will be in Eldon Square Shopping Centre all this week, helping to lay the foundations for a musical called Glorious.

Over a mint tea in a Newcastle café, she says: “Glorious is a really quiet musical.

“It’s not about those really big things. It promises to be more intimate.”

There have been performances in two cities so far, London and Nottingham. While both featured the same songs, each was city-specific with musical accompaniment provided by different groups sourced locally and with different casts.

While there will be an audience and tickets are on sale, it is clear that Glorious is no Legally Blonde or Carousel.

As part of the forthcoming second Wunderbar Festival, which is described as “a week of activity, spontaneity, interaction, dialogue and play”, Glorious will take shape with involvement from the North East public.

Some things, however, have already been set in place.

For the one-off Newcastle performance, musical director Suzie Shrubb has recruited a band from Gateshead’s Academy of Music and Sound. “They’re all wannabe rock stars so this will be a rocky version of Glorious, which is nice,” says Rajni, “because the songs are slow.”

They were written for the show by brothers Ben and Max Ringham. So this is to be a quiet musical featuring young rockers.

Rajni, who is performer as well as writer, curator and producer, will be in it too.

If a quiet, rocky musical sounds paradoxical, that is maybe the point. Rajni explains that the name Glorious sprang into her mind because of its associations with things grandiose.

Since the narrative between the songs is yet to become clear, Rajni can’t tell me exactly what this Newcastle performance will be about. But it will be a reminder that in this land of hope and glory there are all sorts of people from many different walks of life and not all of them brash or powerful.

Rajni is perfect for Wunderbar. She is an artist who specialises in things that involve the public and that have an air of spontaneity about them, and indeed wonder.

During the first Wunderbar Festival in 2009 she created two pieces.