Sounds Like Christmas

It was lovely to be back at St Peter's by the Waterfront again for this years IODS  Christmas concert, Sounds Like Christmas. Such a beautiful production that helps everyone, including us, kick off our  Christmas in festive style. The church always looks so beautiful as the singers are all lined up on tiered staging under the stained glass window. The lighting wonderfully illuminated the window and singers to create a perfect scenario in the capable hands of Jeremy Chuter.  

 Once again Steph and Bridget have put together some different songs along with all the well loved numbers and Christmas carols. Appreciation must also go to Mike Wren and Andrew Burke for all their efforts in creating the musical arrangements tailored to the individual soloists and some excellently worked harmonies.

This talented cast certainly wowed their audience. They kicked off in style with ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ with over 40 singers and soloists producing some  brilliant  harmonies.  Abbie McQuitty gave an amazingly powerful performance of ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’.  Owen Berry was also impressive with his rendition of ‘Santa Taught Me How To Yodel’ holding his final notes forever!

After the interval they had all changed out of their Christmas jumpers and into their finery with the ladies in lots of sparkly outfits and the men all in their DJ’s. In the second half they always introduce some comedy. Here we heard their own amusing version of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ which was followed by ‘Hey Big Santa’. This was presented by four of the ladies pretending to be ancient and infirm in their dressing gowns and involved some great comedy acting and singing. Absolutely hilarious! Other excellent soloists included Courtney Yule, Leslie Burrows, Scarlett Jackaman, Freyer Marsh, Chloe Brown to name  but a few  and of course not forgetting a quality performance by Steph Brown to round off the evening.

The band was in fine form and could certainly ‘rock’ on occasion.  Mike Wren was wielding the baton in his own inspiring and encouraging way.  Martin Leigh compered the evening and had once again found some delightfully, terrible  Christmas cracker jokes. 

This  always proves to be a popular annual event.  They had even added an extra performance but  all the tickets still being  completely sold out within the first few weeks. We and the rest of the audience were not disappointed, it was a wonderfully entertaining and festive evening for which our thanks go to Mike, Stephanie, Bridget, Martin and Owen and all the production team and singers.  It was lovely to see you all again. Happy Christmas.

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