The Marsh Family have officially unleashed their debut single – a double A-side release. The first is a self-penned track ‘Bring Us A Candle’ and the second a cover of ‘Mack The Knife’, a hit by Bobby Darin, is in conjunction with the Prostate Cancer UK charity as an official single to raise awareness of the most common cancer in men.
The group consist of parents Ben (a history lecturer) and Danielle Marsh (a university administrator) and their children Alfie (15), Thomas (13), Ella (12) and Tess (9). Also appearing on some tracks and videos with the occasional howl is Monty their dog and their new puppy Boo may appear in the future! They have been likened to The Von Trapps and The Partridge Family.
The Kent based family shot to fame after they uploaded their parody of ‘One Day More’, performed in their front room, to Facebook in March 2020. The track satirized life during lockdown and was recorded on a basic device, the video went viral reaching over 7 million views in three days. The family now have nearly 100,000 YouTube subscribers since channel started last April and over 13 million views of their videos.
The family has parodied numerous songs – from musicals to chart hits – to describe their experiences. All the adaptations have clever lyrics and occasional choreography. With input from his family, Ben writes most of the group’s parodies and original tracks. Danielle’s father John Burn was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2018. That year, the family surprised him with their Prostatectomy song, in homage to the operation he had to remove his prostate. While most of their songs boast tongue in cheek tendencies, this song had extra personal meaning after John’s own brush with the disease.
“Seeing dad go through prostate cancer made me realise that nothing is standing still. We are always progressing and as time goes on, more and more of these things (like cancer) are potentially in the offing and the only thing we can do is to act on them sooner rather than later.” Danielle Marsh
