Songs of the Season – A Celebration of Christmas Joy – St Philip’s Cathedral, Birmingham

Director: James Edge

Were it not for the approaching shortest day of the year – Winter Solstice – denying tonight’s congregation the exqusit baptism of light beaming through Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s, ‘Life of Christ’ themed stained-glass windows, a pre-Raphaelite consummation of near divine form and narrative, this evening’s celebration of sacred and profane words and music would have been of near elemental and spiritual perfection.

One cannot have everything, but tonight at least, a surfeit of splendour is embraced with relish enough to sate nearly most the neediest souls in search of succour. Suffice to say – a damn fine, humbug-free, jolly jingle-bell good time for all. Just as long as Disco Christmas with all the gauche trimmings is the default setting preference.

It would be the coldest of flint-hearted, love-children of Scrooge who can’t soon be won over by this bauble and tinsel tumble down sentimental boulevard: just don’t expect The Festival of Nine Carols – instead, this gig seriously kicks some Stable ass.

So much for the sacred, bring on the profane – West End Best Friend brings spangling, glitter-ball, Disco driven all time kitsch-naff-mas favourites served up with sticky, icky plum pudding and not to be trifled with shameless indulgence with medleys aplenty of popular songs, occasional hymns and a cheeky wink of Panto rapport innuendo.

Tonight’s host, dapper three-piece suited and booted James Edge, plays it like a trouper as compere and occasional crooner. He decks the cruise-liner like decks with Christmas jolly holly Emcee clichés, perhaps sometimes allowing his enthusiasm to get the better of more nuanced, paced delivery. Whatever – tonight’s audience is totally  Game On, not least any number of anticipatory parents for the Act One closing presentations. More anon.

Caprice Lane (a name that just has to be), co-principal singer, resplendent in her diva-dazzled-in-headlights couture, lets the Christmas cannon of Seasonal sensation bang out with a belter of a rendition of Wham’s Last Christmas pared down to subtle piano accompaniment (needs must that all music was pre-recorded, sometimes not sympathetically acoustically attuned to the lofty marble surfaced cathedral setting). God’s venue – God’s rules, OK? It crescendos with invigorating gusto enough to worry the custodians as to the resilience of those Burne Jones windows. Their altar backdrop, incidentally, gives moments of unscripted grace when exterior ambient lighting brings out in subtle relief their exquisite Scriptural narrations. 

Fellow crooner, partner in panache n’ smooth schmaltz, Jack Carr’s solo homage to It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas soon has the audience compelled to engage in an early, but by no means last of the evening’s clap-along bonhomie. 

Disco glitter-ball snowflakes dance about and above the Cathedral chancel and altar’s marbled pillars and sentinel pilasters reaching up to the decorative ceiling coffering. The absolute make-a-wish on finding the silver sixpence in the Christmas pud has to be the Act One closing pieces by the younger and older children’s cohorts representing Birmingham’s pride and joy to the world SOTE, School of Theatre Excellence. No exaggerated affectations in that title. A more promising exposition of purity of voice, cadence and heart-lifting celebration couldn’t be wished for – give it up to Musical Director Callum Thompson and these gifted kids.

The latter cohort’s interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of the classic sixties film Whistle Down The Wind, ‘This is the night/Children rule the world’ is a magnificat of optimism. Whenever the bellicose, whingers whine about, ’Kids today, what is the world coming to?’ point them in the direction of these full-on on total adolescent ambassadors of full-on muse musical momentum. Consummate style with a smile – they are the dedicated precedent of choral cool passion.

God Only Knows – it’s a Song of Seasons full-on celebration of popular joy to the world. The promotional blurb promises ‘That warm fuzzy feeling that only Christmas can give you,’ is duly delivered and then some. Give the soul a good Christmas cuddle and catch the last gig on the night of the Winter Solstice – things literally begin to brighten up from there on.

Runs until 21 December 2025