Chichester Festival Theatre delivers the perfect Christmas concert

Review: A Merry Little Christmas Celebration, Chichester Festival Theatre, December 3-5
Daniel Evans, Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Tobias KeyDaniel Evans, Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Tobias Key
Daniel Evans, Artistic Director of Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo by Tobias Key

In this most extraordinary of years, Chichester Festival Theatre might just have stumbled on the perfect festive format – and not just because we were all so desperate to get out and enjoy it.

2020 has shaped our lives in ways we could never have imagined, but it hasn’t been without its equally unexpected upturns.

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And this is definitely one of them, a move away from a Christmas concert based on mass spectacle to one based on the rather curious notion of socially-distanced intimacy.

The fact is it that works beautifully.

The set is a large drawing room, with gorgeously-lit Christmas trees at the back – and on the stage, entertaining us, is a group of superb musicians backing, in their various permutations, four hugely-gifted singers – Rebecca Trehearn, Emmanuel Kojo, Rebecca Caine and the CFT’s very own artistic director Daniel Evans.

There is a lightness of touch and a great variety to the programming, all interspersed with Simon Callow’s increasingly exasperated and increasingly hilarious rendition of The 12 Days of Christmas as seen from the sorely-tried receiving end.

Callow also gives, in two delicious portions, the great highlight of the night, two excerpts from A Christmas Carol, a tale he was born to deliver.

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The genius of Dickens’ classic is that it has withstood so many re-imaginings in such a huge variety of retellings, but Callow gives us Dickens in its purest form, letting the words alone – through his skill of delivery – create the most vivid pictures of the grisly old skinflint and the moment of his redemption. Absolutely wonderful.

And around it all is the music – from Rebecca Trehearn’s fantastic The Man With The Bag to Emmanuel Kojo’s beautiful White Christmas with added, poignant thoughts.

A Christmas medley offered plenty of favourites in rapid succession, but maybe the musical highlight was Daniel Evans’ haunting rendition of Joni Mitchell’s River.

Oddly, its taken the horrors of 2020 for us see so much more of Evans on the stage. Let’s hope that’s just the way its stays when a degree of normality returns. The mix of the voices was perfect tonight – and his was an essential part of it.

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And so, as a dismal year comes to an end, the CFT gives us the brightest of notes, a new and different era with its Christmas concerts.

With the best will in the world, Chichester Festival Theatre’s old format was tired a long time ago.

Let’s hope a show like tonight’s is the new starting point – with perhaps Chichester Cathedral Choir, an essential part of our Chichester Christmas, being given their very own night instead next year. Or maybe part of the new format.