Review: BBC SSO, Christmas at the Movies - City Halls, Glasgow

IT’S often the case that events like this one – a BBC SSO concert geared as much for radio recording as for live performance – can seem awkwardly split in their delivery.

Christmas at the Movies was exactly that. On the one hand we had presenter Jamie MacDougall in full, spontaneous flow, entertaining the audience with repartee, and doing it with the engaging naughty-boy charm he is famous for; while on the other, he reined himself in now and again to read from a script conceived in the manner of a link for his Sunday night programme Classics Unwrapped, for which the live recording was being made.

It’s the nature of the beast, of course. Listen to it all when it’s broadcast (date as yet unknown) and a radio audience will experience it the other way round.

As for the music, animals and aliens were a clear theme – “no pandas, but I’m here in black and white”, chuckled Jamie. There followed a menagerie of musical styles, with performances of John Barry’s Dances with Wolves, Elton John’s Circle of Life from The Lion King, and Mancini’s The Pink Panther, and we were also treated to the unmistakeable intergalactic glitter of John Williams and the cartoonesque chase music of Wallace and Gromit.

MacDougall sang along – manufacturing a passable Elton John, but more himself in Richard Farnon’s gorgeous arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.

A mixed bag, but sveltely delivered by the SSO under Stephen Bell.

RATING: ***