WAVE goodbye to choirs as you know them. The Spooky Men’s Chorale is coming to Bridport all the way from Australia next month.

‘The Spookies’ were formed a decade ago by Stephen Taberner and sing a mix of Georgian songs and earthy male-voice tunes.

They will be celebrating their 10th anniversary at Bridport Arts Centre on August 5 – and you would be mad to miss them.

The ensemble has been described as sounding ‘as sacred as a high church choir one minute; as stupid as a raft of drunken Kazahkstani butchers the next’.

At Bridport, the behatted, bearded line-up will regale Spooky veterans and virgins alike with rib-tickling and sometimes heart-rending original compositions and eloquent arrangements by the inspired deerstalker-topped Kiwi choral impresario, Stephen Taberner.

With a close harmony sound variously described as ‘sexy, powerful, impossibly gentle and sad but unmistakably male’ and lyrics that include the line: ‘we can grow beards if we want to’, their repertoire ranges from Georgian-style chants to a capella ballads, spiky political jabs and Cole Porter’s Every Time We Say Goodbye.

Pop music doesn’t escape either, as their spoofs of Queen’s Flash and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Boogie Wonderland and Abba’s Dancing Queen bear witness.

Stephen said: “I started the choir in Sydney, largely through my love of Georgian music. I was a bit obsessed with it and had the name for the group as well as the main idea of it for years before I managed to get it together.

“At the time I got the Spookies together I was trying to carve out a career for myself as a singer-songwriter and the response we got at our first gig was so promising that I decided we should go for it.”

As word spread through the Blue Mountains and further afield, the Spookies fanbase developed, they were approached by an English agent and they performed their first gig in England six years ago.

Since then they have become sought-after regulars on the folk and festival circuit and show no signs of slowing down.

“We sing with humour and we sing about a lot of things from a male perspective, about how men are often oblivious to the subtleties of life and can find life quite hard at times,” said Stephen.

“But we have a lot of fun and hope our audiences do too.”

The Spooky Men’s Chorale is at the arts centre on August 5. Call 01308 424204 for full details.