BPO – A Christmas Carol – Roger Allam, BPO Brass Quintet.

My very high expectations were surpassed, and then some more!

Sharp drum beats and an elegant brass arrangement of ‘Ding-dong, merrily on high’ opened the show. Roger Allam’s sonorous tones, carefully amplified, announced that Marley was dead. This same voice was Scrooge, cold, ‘hard and sharp as flint’, and his good-natured nephew; it was the timid Bob Cratchit, and the ‘comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice’ of old Fezziwig; most alarming it was the ‘splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long, line of brilliant laughs!’ Indeed, there was the entire cast of Dickensian characters, human and spooky, in this magical concerto for bass voice.

Roger Allam

Brighton Philharmonic’s virtuoso orchestra, John Ellwood and Julie Ryan (trumpets), John James (horn), William Brown (trombone) and John Elliott (tuba), was completed by conductor Joanna MacGregor who enticed from her piano sounds, effects and delicate tunes that don’t normally come from the concert platform. Knocking, knelling bells, weird strumming – all potent triggers for our imagination.

Occasional carol interludes leavened the bleak story and enlivened the jolly climax. Director Richard Williams had done an excellent job with the script, keeping the flavour of Dickens’ prose and the punch of his morality tale all within just 70 minutes. The final Carol Fantasy put the players’ brilliance centre-stage and made the perfect conclusion to an enchanting concert.

St Luke’s Church,
10 December 2022

Rating: