It is not the most wonderful time of the year just yet, and I am not quite sure I was ready for Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, an all-singing, all-dancing, all-showbiz display of festive razzle dazzle. If you ever wondered what it was like to see the cast of Ted Lasso, in various shades of sparkles, not in character but not quite themselves, perform a Christmas song or do a skit in front of an enormous Christmas tree and an 18-piece band, don’t worry, Apple has got your back.
This is an old-fashioned, variety-ish show, filmed at the Coliseum in London, “the place that I call home,” Waddingham explains. Her mother, who is in the crowd, was a mezzo there for years, and she spent much of her childhood in one of the boxes. It’s the first misty-eyed moment of many. In a series of spectacular gowns, she chats to the crowd, gets emotional, belts out solo numbers and duets with the likes of Hamilton’s Leslie Odom Jr, Sam Ryder and the actor Luke Evans, introduces the London Gay Men’s Chorus and the Fabulous Lounge Swingers, all the while shimmying and swishing across the stage.
It’s a wonder Waddingham had time to film it, as she might just be the hardest working woman in the industry. She hosted Liverpool’s Eurovision (with aplomb, it has to be said), and recently, the Earthshot Prize. Over the years, she’s been in every musical going, and has plonked some of her castmates from her West End and Broadway career, Game of Thrones and Ted Lasso in the crowd for support and the occasional gag.
The show begins, then, with the spectacle of some of AFC Richmond players in glittery tuxedos, dancing and handing Waddingham gifts backstage, as she knocks out the first of many Christmas numbers on her way to the auditorium. Is that Jamie Tartt handing over a glass of bubbles, you ask? It is indeed the actor Phil Dunster, discombobulatingly with his own accent, rather than the more familiar Manc drawl. “I love you to bits and bits and bits,” Waddingham tells him as he finishes his big turn. Similarly, Nick Mohammed, better known to Lasso fans as the dastardly Nate, has a Nate-ish role to play, as he hangs around for a little too long (this makes more sense when you’ve seen it) but is also just, well, the actor and comedian Nick Mohammed.
Naturally, this comes from Apple, so it makes sense that it is Lasso-heavy, with “my footballing boys” putting in extra time, as other actors from the show find ways to appear that don’t require them to necessarily be there at showtime. One of the nicest things is waiting to see who will pop up next. I won’t tell you exactly who is hanging around backstage, only that it is worth waiting until the very end to see who comes down the metaphorical chimney.
The whole thing is less than an hour long, breezing in and out way before it outstays its welcome, and it is a little more theatrical than, say, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special from Apple in 2020, which is to say that Waddingham doesn’t quite fly through the night sky on her own sleigh. It is early for a Christmas special, but then again, plenty of people have had their trees up for weeks, and it’s hard to begrudge anyone some pre-seasonal cheer at the moment. I wonder if it would be more at home twinkling at the top of the Christmas schedules on terrestrial TV. When is the right moment to watch something like this? Do you hit play the moment it drops, and crack open the Irish cream? Do you wait until the big day? Real contrarians, surely, will save it for the January sales.
This is very gentle, very showbiz, very glittering. The jokes are warm, not hot, but everyone laughs heartily, buoyed by the high spirits around them. People applaud halfway through the musical numbers, and by the end, you want to do that too; Waddingham’s relentless good cheer is contagious. You won’t need a cheese board after watching it, but it should certainly get you in the mood.
I have given this three stars because I must give it a star rating, but there is no way of appraising it. It exists outside of the ratings system. If you want to go to the theatre without having to leave your house or pay a lot of cash, this is a fine substitute, and if you want to watch the cast of Ted Lasso pretend they’re in Jersey Boys, at Christmas, then it works too. Not even the Grinch could bah-humbug a spectacle like that.
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