WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS (Stream Theatre)****

 

 By Imogen

Link: https://www.stream.theatre/season/6 £23

Available until: Livestreams every night at 7.30pm until 1^st January 2021, plus 2.30pm matinee on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays

Christmas concerts are a great opportunity to see some of your favourite West End singers. It’s not as good as seeing them live. There is a good selection of singers and actors here so there’s a good chance of seeing someone you like. They sing most of the same Christmas songs as in the other concerts but it’s not their fault there are only a limited number of good Christmas songs.

My favourite singer in this concert is Sophie Isaacs from Six and she opened the concert brilliantly with We Need a Little Christmas. She has lots of energy and the style of it is just right for Sophie, it has a sort of 1950s feel even though it is from the 1980s. The only way to make music sound good in the 1980s was to put it into the style of another decade.

There is also a warm-voiced performance from Sheila Ferguson, some really gorgeous singing from Dom Hartley-Harris, and David Bedella is brilliant in his song. If one of my husbands ends up looking like David, maybe I won’t divorce him. Michael Vinsen is lovely in Christmas in Our Hearts.

If you’re a traditionalist you’ll like Christine Allardo who sang Silent Night. She sings the song as it is and doesn’t try to put loads of unnecessary twiddles in. If you like X Factor or The Voice, you might enjoy seeing Lydia Lucy. There is also a scene with Maureen Lipman on the phone which is probably really funny and a reading by Simon Callow. He’s reading Dickens but it’s not too awful.

Kevin Clifton sings Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. I thought we’d got rid of him when he left Strictly but he’s doing musical theatre now. He is a bit of a show off but he’s a brilliant dancer and he has a good voice with a nice tone. I wonder if AJ can sing, it would be nice to see him in a concert.

There were two songs from Lee Mead which should make Louise happy. He sang them both in his recent Christmas concert, but he sang Santa Claus is Coming to Town in a different place and with the West End Gospel Choir so it was a bit different but he was still good. We also got to see the video of his new single, In Your Arms for Christmas. It’s a good song and I think it’s good and he opens his mouth properly so it’s not 100% obvious he’s lip-synching. You have to open your mouth more when you’re singing than when you’re speaking and singers always do it when you’re singing but ask them to lip synching and they often mouth the words like they’re speaking them and it doesn’t look convincing. But Lee seems to know what he’s doing.

Lee has sadly tested positive for coronavirus so he won’t be able to spend Christmas with his family. We are all sending him lots and lots of love! Especially Louise as he’s her favourite musical theatre star. Get well soon, Lee!

There are other performers too but if you want to know who they are you can watch it yourself.