Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas – Apple TV+

Picture: Courtesy of Apple

Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas is available on Apple TV+.

Star rating: five stars ★★★★★

Move over, Mariah, there’s a new Christmas queen in town.

In just a few short years, Hannah Waddingham has leapt from being a West End star to a global icon, thanks primarily to her award-winning role in Apple TV+’s football sitcom Ted Lasso. Now the streamer has given her a new Christmas spectacular, Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas.

Often, when variety shows claim to be from the performer’s home, they mean a studio set that could just about convince you was a real house if only you’d had a little too much mulled wine. But for this special, the venue of the London Coliseum has a genuine claim to be the site of Waddingham’s homecoming. Of course, its St Martin’s Lane location is in the heart of the West End, but it’s also the venue where, aged eight, young Hannah would watch her mother sing as a mezzo-soprano in the ENO chorus.

And so, with her parents and her own eight-year-old looking on, Waddingham presents a programme of Christmas standards with her trademark combination of friendly confidence, joyful enthusiasm and killer vocals. Backed by a big band under the musical direction of David Tench, the uptempo spirit of ‘What Christmas Means to Me’ is a perfect opener. The tempo keeps up with ‘The Man with the Bag’, during which choreographer Matt Flint’s professional dancers are supplemented by many of Waddingham’s fellow Ted Lasso cast members. Their comedy is finely played without overshadowing the main event – even when Nick Mohammed (no stranger to physical comedy on the West End stage) finds himself hoisted into the Coliseum’s fly tower.

There are more serious moments – duetting with Leslie Odom Jr on ‘Please Come Home for Christmas’, or leading the ENO Chorus in a rousing ‘O Holy Night’ – interspersed with backstage skits as Waddingham is supposed to be offstage for an outfit change. Presumably unavailable for the day when the main show was recorded, Ted Lasso stars Juno Temple and Brett Goldstein pop up in Waddingham’s dressing room, both fizzing with the charisma that made the football sitcom so beloved.

The onstage fun continues as a rocking ‘Run Rudolph Run’ demonstrates how her tremendous voice can go full rock belt when needed. And thanks to her duet with Sam Ryder, it further reminds us that the pair have been such great ambassadors for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Alongside that, another Lasso star, Phil Dunster, joining with Waddingham and duo The Fabulous Lounge Singers for ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, is the closest the special comes to old-school TV variety cheesiness. Dunster is a fine singer but can’t help but come across as the vocally weaker of the four.

Indeed, such is the powerhouse that is Hannah Waddingham (“You can do anything… you’ve got the voice of an angel, and you’re the world’s greatest entertainer,” Goldstein accurately tells her at one point) that even Luke Evans, a fellow Brit who’s become huge in the States, feels slightly dwarfed in their rendition together of ‘Winter Wonderland’.

And when the London Gay Men’s Chorus appear to be led by Waddingham in a rousing ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’, it’s bittersweet. While, like all the musical numbers, it is slick and heartwarming, it is also the last of the evening. For Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas runs at a mere 44 minutes long and leaves us wanting far, far more.

Still, even with that criminally short running time, Waddingham has shown that she is the new Queen of Christmas – a claim her bevvy of seasonal TV ad appearances must surely bolster. As she piles herself into a black cab driven by another famous face, one can’t help hoping this TV special becomes an annual event.

In the meantime, peek up into its fly system the next time you go to the London Coliseum and see if Nick Mohammed is still swinging up there. Maybe they’ll let him down in next year’s special.

Scott Matthewman