White Christmas – The Mill at Sonning | Review

This production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is trusting of its audience – and rightly so, as an invitation to join in with the title number was never taken by anyone to mean permission was granted to sing along to everything else as well. Such has been the state of the world in living memory that despite the 1940s setting, a line about the audience looking “like they’ve seen a war” might well resonate with some patrons (far be from me to list all of the recent and current ongoing atrocities). The sight of military personnel, bookending the show, is also a reminder of conflicts past and present.

For the most part, though, this is a show with plenty of heart. Gary Lloyd’s choreography is ambitious for the relatively limited stage space, and the dancing isn’t, technically, always performed with military meticulousness, but this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, because the passion far outweighs the precision. The plot, for what it is, is so straightforward it is quite impossible to understand. There was a war. The Allies won it. The United States didn’t need as many military personnel anymore, so a large number of them had to find alternative ways of making a living. Bob Wallace (Jason Kadji) and Phil Davis (Connor Hughes) turn their hand to entertainment, or as their former army superior, General Waverly (a highly convincing Mark Curry) puts it, ‘showbusiness’. They meet Betty (Gabriella Williams) and Judy Haynes (Nic Myers) who agree, after some negotiation, to be a part of their next great big show.

Mike (Elliot Allinson), Wallace and Davis’ stage manager, director and dance captain (amongst other things) is beyond stressed out: he has five days to do about a month’s work, and without a retinue of production assistants he is used to. Anyone who has had to do frantic planning for a major event can quite easily sympathise. There’s enough subplot – just about – to maintain interest: another production comes calling for one of the leading ladies, and there are misunderstandings and miscommunications that result in predictable but nonetheless valid results.

Waverly is nominally in charge of an inn – never a hotel, always an ‘inn’ – in Vermont (I’m so London-centric I can barely tell Leeds and Bradford apart, let alone Vermont and Massachusetts), which is really run by concierge extraordinaire Martha Watson (Shirley Jameson, who has an impressive stage presence, even amongst a cast with no weak links to report). Jae Alexander leads a seven-piece band, which more often than not sounds like a lot more than that. As they say in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, “In here, life is beautiful. The girls are beautiful. Even the orchestra is beautiful!”

In what might otherwise have been a rather sedate show full of lullabies and sweetness, the energetic song and dance numbers keep coming. It didn’t matter, for once, that the narrative had stopped unfolding just so the audience is treated, for instance, to an entire musical number about what a wonderful instrument the piano is. I was told the first half was ninety minutes long. It felt like forty. Sentimental much? Surprisingly, no. And that is precisely why it’s worth seeing.

Review by Chris Omaweng

Veterans Bob Wallace and Phil Davis have a successful song-and-dance act after World War II. With romance in mind, the two follow a duo of beautiful singing sisters en route to their Christmas show at a Vermont lodge, which just happens to be owned by Bob and Phil’s former army commander. With a dazzling score featuring well-known standards including “Blue Skies”, “I Love A Piano”, “How Deep Is the Ocean” and the perennial title song, White Christmas is an uplifting, wholesome musical that will delight audiences of all ages.

Paramount Pictures released the movie musical White Christmas in 1954. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the film starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen, and featured 17 songs by Irving Berlin. The top moneymaker of 1954, White Christmas set a new record as Hollywood’s all-time highest-grossing musical.

The stage adaptation of White Christmas, with additional Irving Berlin songs added, opened on Broadway in 2008, after several successful engagements throughout the United States. Directed by Walter Bobbie, the show was an audience favourite and it returned to Broadway the following year.

Cast:  Jason Jajdi, Connor Hughes, Gabriella Williams, Nic Myers, Mark Curry, Shirley Jameson, Natasha Cayabyab, Shem Omari James, Greta McKinnon, Eleanor Walsh, Elliot Allinson, Lewis Rae, Grace Chan, Jack Speck

Creative team:
Director – Jonathan O’Boyle
Set Designer – Jason Denvir
Costume Designer – Natalie Titchener
Choreographer – Gary Lloyd
Assistant Choreographer – Lauren Gore
Assistant Choreographer – Emma Hunter
Lighting Designer – David Howe
Musical Arranger & Musical Director – Jae Alexander
Sound Designer – Chris Whybrow
Lighting Associate – Freddy Sherwood
Casting Director – Jane Deitch

Irving Berlin’s WHITE CHRISTMAS
Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Book by David Ives and Paul Blake
The Mill at Sonning Theatre, Sonning Eye, Reading RG4 6TY
27 November 2024 to 25 January 2025