Let's start at the very beginning. At an old people's home in Inverness.

It isn't the likeliest place from which to launch a theatrical phenomenon, but that, nevertheless, is where they invented Movie Karaoke.

One night, the residents hired a projector and an old print of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and printed up lyric sheets so everyone could sing along.

A visitor from London popped in, and it didn't take long before pound note signs began to flash before his eyes.

Back home, he borrowed the idea, swapped the film for The Sound of Music, and hired a cinema.

That was a year ago. Today, the film, complete with on-screen lyrics, is still running. And what's more, it's going on tour. "It's taken us by surprise slightly," admits its producer David Johnson, as he prepares to roll out the concept, now titled Singalong-a-Sound-of-Music, to Bradford.

"We only announced eight or nine shows originally, but we just never stopped. The London run has now been extended through to next Easter."

It isn't only the prospect of singing Do-Re-Mi to words projected alongside the film that gets the crowds excited. The event has assumed circus-like proportions, as audiences boo the Von Trapp baroness and dress up as nuns, Nazis, or even the Alps.

Prizes are awarded for the best costumes, and in London, celebrities come along to judge. Frank Skinner reportedly wept during the communal singing of Edelweiss.

"It allows people to do all the things you're not usually supposed to do in the cinema or at the theatre," says Johnson. "The only rule is that you mustn't be irritating."

The secret, he says, is the enduring popularity of the movie itself - one of the two most successful of all time, allowing for inflation (the other is Gone With the Wind).

"It actually is a great movie. If people come to mock, we find that within 20 minutes they're glued to the story."

The fancy dress element begs comparison with the similarly camp Rocky Horror Show. But, says Johnson, this one requires less previous knowledge.

"Rocky Horror has lots of rules that you need to follow, but that's not the idea with this. You don't even need to have seen the film before, because you've got all the lyrics in front of you."

In London, the show was originally a magnet for the gay community, but Johnson believes its provincial run will win it a much broader audience. "It truly has something for everyone," he says.

And the idea of Movie Karaoke does not end with Julie Andrews. Johnson is currently negotiating to give Grease the same treatment, and he is planning to launch the idea in New York.

"Grease will be more a show for kids," he says. "We'll do it in a very different way."

There is, it seems, no stopping the bandwagon - although the prospect of seeing Singalong-a-Seven-Brides-for-Seven-Brothers staged south of Inverness is, Johnson concedes, slight.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.