The 12th Annual ‘A West End Christmas’, produced by Theatre MAD in aid of The make A Difference Trust took place last night, 6th December at St Pauls Covent Garden. A sparkling spectacle of stars and song, raised over 12,000 pounds
Featuring some of the top West End shows including The Phantom of The Opera, Wicked, Matilda, Miss Saigon, the show opened with West End Kids’ homage to the Tiller Girls, a high kicking routine to We Need A Little Christmas.
There were three songs written especially for the occasion, two by Anderson and Petty and one by Kansley and Lidert beautifully sung by Kieran Brown, Emma Hatton and The M.T.A and Carolyn Maitland.
With her cool jazz band, Joanna Strand did a Christmas Waltz that had the audience swaying, and Summer Strallen sang a beautiful rendition of The Christmas Song with Oliver Ormson. Sabrina Aloueche and aAron Sidwell rocked the church, while Ross William Wild sang and played guitar, accompanied by piano and harp to give a moving version of Hallelujah.
Showstoppers! wowed with their incredible improvisation, and the Blues Brothers donned their shades and shook their tail feathers with the audience clapping along. You can’t keep a good show down, and some of the cast of the Commitments came together to give a hand clapping rendition of Fairy Tale of New York.
The fabulous piano playing and comedy chat of Worbey and Farrell got the second act of to a fabulous start. The lovely Anton Stephans promised he’d “be home for Christmas” and Maria Kesselman’s voice soared as she sang of The Most Wonderful Birthday of All.
Readings by Michael Pennington, Jannie Dee and Michelle Collins complimented the songs beautifully.
Jumping on the underground, directly form their Sunday show, the cast of In The Heights arrived to close the show. With percussion, brass, guitar and drums they rounded the evening off with a roof raising, tow tapping Latin American number Noche De Pas, which was anything but silent.