'Monty Python' choir sing for Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has invited an East Midlands choir to sing for him when he receives a peace prize.

Choir Invisible, named after a line from the Dead Parrot sketch in Monty Python's Flying Circus, is the archbishop's official choir in the UK.

It has 90 members from across the East Midlands and rehearses at Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire.

Members will perform for about 1,000 delegates at the Unesco headquarters in Paris on Monday.

'Ordinary people'

Choir director Sally Brown said: "It's the highlight of my life and my career, it really is, it's that big. It's the sort of opportunity that you couldn't possibly dream up.

"Things like this don't happen to ordinary people who live in the East Midlands, they just don't. So for it to happen to us is the most extraordinary thing ever."

The choir invites members from Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and sings African-American and South African gospel songs.

Members were performing in Stoke-on-Trent in 2008 when the archbishop heard them and asked them to be his official choir in the UK.

The event at the Unesco headquarters is held every year to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The archbishop will be awarded the Bilbao Peace Prize and the concert will be broadcast over the internet.

The choir will also perform for visitors at Notre Dame Cathedral the following morning.