Home for the Holidays – August Wilson Theatre, New York

Picture: Carol Rosegg

Home for the Holidays continues at the August Wilson Theatre, New York until 30 December.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

If you’re an avid fan of television’s singing and general talent competitions, Home for the Holidays, a veritable fusillade of peppy Christmas pop and carols, might well be your cup of Yuletide cheer.

The show, which bills itself as “Broadway’s only Christmas show”, headlines three first-place winners from three of those TV programmes.

They are: Candice Glover, an R&B/soul recording artist, who in 2013 won American Idol’s 12th season; Josh Kaufman, who was the victor on the sixth season of The Voice in 2014 and went on to make a Broadway debut later that year as a replacement for the title role in the revival of Pippin; and Bianca Ryan, who in 2006, at age 11, was the champion of the first season of America’s Got Talent and has gone on to build a career in music and also appear in the 2014 movie We Are Kings.

Also contributing to the vocalising are Peter and Evynne Hollens, a married couple who have captured attention with their a cappella YouTube videos.

The nine-piece onstage band is led by creative and musical director Jonathan Tessero at the piano.

The actor Danny Aiello lends marquee allure with some observations and reminiscences about his own Christmases in New York. He also gets to sing a few bars in a well-seasoned lounge style baritone.

Rounding out the company is the hostess, bubbly Kaitlyn Bristowe, who gained celebrity from her appearances on both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette TV reality shows.

The show is relentlessly good-spirited. Nothing wrong about that, but it could use a little variety in tone, as the performers in solos and various combinations run though a programme that starts with ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ and less than 90 minutes later ends with ‘Joy to the World’.

In between are sandwiched in a host of other carols and holiday pop songs, such as ‘Why Couldn’t It Be Christmas Every Day?’, which was a recording success for Ryan on her debut album. The problem is that most of it begins to sound alike, with driving, slick quasi-big band up-tempos dominating both the carols and the pop stuff.

The vocal dexterity of the performers cannot be faulted. Their voices sometimes meld into interesting harmonies, and their solos have clarity of tone. Glover, in particular, brings a majestic aloofness to her solos and happily doesn’t overdo the soulful melismas.

However, these songs often have stories to tell or emotions to express, and this element, for the most part, gets lost.

Some exceptions: Kaufman’s joyful rendering of the Mariah Carey hit ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ and a medley using all three stars of the show and combining for a bit of wartime nostalgia or at least a trace of melancholy with the ballads ‘Merry Christmas, Darling’, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ and ‘There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays’.

The show’s bright look, with colours shifting on a backdrop of jazzily abstracted fir trees and an abundance of sequins on the costumes, further complements the general mood.

To sum up, Home for the Holidays registers like several gulps of non-alcoholic eggnog. It will give you a taste of the season but hardly intoxicate you.

Ron Cohen

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