The Greatest Christmas Show is immersed in the traditional, endlessly happy festive occasion of Christmas brought to life as a live theatre extravaganza.
Brought to the stage by Base Entertainment from Australia, it has been touring the provinces of New Zealand from the bottom up.
Kicking off in Invercargill on the 28 November and taking in a generous number of venues, winding up to penultimate performances at Auckland’s Bruce Mason Centre, before winding up the season in Hamilton.
The New Zealand production is helmed by two vocalists, Catherine Hay from Christchurch and Sasha Simic from Melbourne.
Hay is a highly regarded vocal coach and has appeared on stage in productions like Celtic Illusion and Wicked.
Simic has a slight Aussie twang in his voice, and his all-round versatility has seen him in recent productions of Jersey Boys and Les Misérables.
The set design is static. Christmas trees with festive decorations, lots of tinsel and sparkles.
Watching the audience stream in and this is squarely a family entertainment evening tonight with plenty of pre-teens seated up close to the stage.
It is their voices which dominate the cheers, and it appears the parents and grandparents in the audience are perfectly fine with that.
What brings the show to exuberant life is the six-strong female dancing troupe, Lizzie Lawless, Sophie Voss, Aria Somerville, Maddie McVeigh, Emily Stewart and Britney Unmack.
Costumed variously as elves, toys, wind-up dolls and Santa’s helpers of course.
The two hosts start the show with some familiar Pop tunes. Santa Baby originally done in lascivious fashion by Eartha Kitt, and the iconically familiar It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, most well-known via Michael Buble.
Sound design, while perfectly adequate for the Bruce Mason Centre, tends to muffle the vocals of Simic especially.
But Hay rises to the occasion with some powerful vocal pyrotechnics on O Holy Night which brings an appreciative cheer from the adults.
Cirque routines from dancer Britney Unmack as she suspends and spins on the silk fabric sashes and the single ring. Practised, fluid and smooth, and quite captivating.
Simic does carry the weight of the stage banter as he leads some of the comedy and magic illusion routines.
Throwing a beach ball around the seated audience evokes the biggest raucous laughs.
Santa is continually promised and appears in a flash of circus illusion in the second half. He even makes a reasonable fist of belting out some lyrics.
Typically throws out bunches of sweets and candy and of course can only reach the front of the audience.
Emily Roughton has a delightful cameo playing a Folk fiddle, morphing into eastern European Gypsy Jazz tones with a swinging version of Carol Of The Bells.
There is a Jingle Bells singalong, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and a very lively Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
All on the greatest Christmas album ever made, Phil Spector’s Christmas Album. Bruce Springsteen’s version of the latter song is his homage to the great Rock’n’roll producer.
Close to the end and Silent Night is unleashed as the aerialist ascends on the big ring in angelic costume, as the glitter falls like snowflakes from the heavens.
The Greatest Christmas Show is spectacularly sentimental and unabashedly joyous at the conclusion.
Tickets for the NZ are available HERE.
Rev. Orange Peel
