Where did your choral journey begin?

My choral journey began at school in Northumberland. Our headmaster’s wife ran a four-part choir in the evenings after school. It was the pride and joy of the school and everyone wanted to be in it, so getting the call-up was a massive deal. I came back to school one Easter term (and wouldn’t it be the Easter term; bleak, cold and the only term that has no carrot at the end of it) to find that the headmaster’s wife had upped and gone – she’d had enough of the headmaster (I think we all had). So my parents took me to Edinburgh to audition for the choir at St Mary’s Cathedral. I became a chorister there and the journey moved up a few gears.

What were the highlights and lowlights of your experience?

The high point was my time as a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. I had terrible impostor syndrome in my first year (the level of singing and general musicianship all around me was phenomenal) so I’d sing rather timidly, mouthing the words with very little coming out. By my third year though I had found my feet and was thoroughly enjoying myself. And then just as my technique and confidence were at their peak, came the lowlight: graduation and the end of the choral journey. I had decided not to go to music college but to follow my comedy dreams instead. That was an exciting new journey, but it was heartbreaking to leave that level of music-making.

Is there one piece that if you heard it again would transport you back to your choir days?

Yes, and unsurprisingly it’s a setting of the canticles. Kenneth Leighton’s Second Service – the world without end in the Mag Gloria is a piece of sublime brilliance. We sang it at St Mary’s (Leighton was a great pal of Dennis Townhill’s and was a regular attendee) and then again at Trinity. Evensong – and that particular hour of the day – is a very charged and magical time in all seasons of the year. I can wallow in canticle settings and enjoy all the memories they trigger, the smell of cough sweets, the rattle of glass candle holders and the beautiful stillness of being in a city centre cathedral while rush hour traffic tears about just outside the West Door.

What is your all-time favourite piece of choral music?

Am I allowed to say the St Matthew Passion? Or is that like taking a whole library when I’m only allowed one book? My favourites change from minute to minute. But right now, let’s go for Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn. An outburst of solid, honey-coloured, English glory. We sang it at a Trinity Gathering evensong recently and I had such a lump in my throat I couldn’t really contribute much – it was like my first year all over again.

Armstrong grew up as a chorister at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh (Adobe Stock)

How has your exposure to choral music shaped your career?

It has been such an ever-present adjunct to my life, it has influenced everything. My love of comedy I’m sure grew out of my time as a chorister. Endless sermons and readings and characters to set thoughts racing, and plenty of time to sit and be quiet. I don’t know anyone who was a chorister – or choral scholar – who doesn’t go on to serve music in some way for the rest of their lives. Either through involvement in charities, amateur music groups or in a professional capacity. Or indeed by becoming chorister parents themselves (I’ve been lucky enough to do all four). It’s the loveliest form of indentured servitude you can imagine.

What is the biggest lesson you took away from this time of your life?

Always turn up five minutes before the start of anything and bring a pencil!