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Kate Rusby at Christmas
Malvern Theatres
***** ONCE again, Kate Rusby was given a very warm
welcome back to a packed house at Malvern for the penultimate evening of
her fourteen night annual Christmas tour. As always, she seemed
genuinely thrilled to be performing in Malvern, and full of festive
cheer. From the outset, Rusby
urges the audience to sing along. She tells us that she’s fighting off a
cold so needs our help with any bits that we know, or indeed any bits
that we don’t know. The first song of the night is the cheery
Bradfield,
the first of many songs tonight from her new Christmas album
The Frost is All Over.
After
Bradfield,
Rusby explains why she began this Christmas tour. Aware that many of us
have heard her explanation before, she suggests that we chat amongst
ourselves while she enlightens any first timers. The focus of these gigs is the vast catalogue of
carols local to her native South Yorkshire. In Victorian times, certain
versions of carols were thrown out of the churches for being too rousing
and hearty, so the folk of Yorkshire took these tunes to their local
hostelries where they sang and drank together every weekend from
Armistice Day to New Year. This has continued to the present day, and these
songs have been part of Rusby’s life since she was a child, when she
would sit with the other youngsters in the corner of the pub, colouring
in, eating crisps and drinking pop, whilst the songs gradually seeped
into her consciousness. Her daughters, aged three and six, now go along
too and the tradition continues. Rusby tells us that at some point in her twenty
three years
of touring, she realised that not every region has this tradition, so
she decided to take some of these songs around the country in a
dedicated Christmas tour. She has since
discovered that there is a similar Cornish tradition, so some of her
songs now mix Yorkshire and Cornish versions of certain carols. Her
second song tonight is in fact Cornish
Wassailing and this is
followed by
Hark, Hark, What News from her 2008
Christmas album Sweet Bells.
Rusby introduces us to
the musicians she shares the stage with, five of whom play an impressive
variety of instruments including acoustic guitar, electric guitar,
double bass and melodeon, and another five who make up the powerful
brass section. They clearly have a great rapport, and Rusby tells us
proudly that one of her ‘brass boys’ appeared in the film
Brassed Off. With last year’s familiar huge white snowflakes
as a backdrop, apparently crocheted by a very nice woman in Sheffield,
the stage is pretty yet simply set. Rusby looks wonderful in her silver
sparkly dress, and jokes about being a human mirrorball. The changes in
lighting throughout the evening make her dress appear to change colour
with every song, from white and yellow, to turquoise and lilac, to
purple and orange and to festive reds and greens. With Rusby’s warmth and
down to earth friendliness, it is easy to see why she has such a huge
following and it’s a shame that given her popularity in Malvern, there
is as yet no date here during her spring 2016 tour. She talks to
the audience as if we’re old friends, and as she sups from her Yorkshire
Tea mug, she tells us of the band’s excitement on receiving their
Christmas Radio Times,
and chats about her dog Doris whose tenth birthday it is, and their
walks around the village near Barnsley where they live. During the first half
of the evening we hear the perky Kris
Kringle about the arrival of the
Christmas tree (Rusby’s arrived yesterday),
Cranbrook –
the first of tonight’s three versions of
While Shepherds Watched,
a Cornish version of I Saw Three Ships,
and Rusby’s own composition Little Jack
Frost. Before the break Rusby dedicates
Little Town of Bethlehem
to the men of Kellingley Colliery*, a gesture applauded by the audience. A few songs into the
second half and Rusby leaves us in the hands of ‘the boys’. They play
three of their own tunes with snippets of old Christmas favourites
amusingly woven in: Jingle Bell Rock,
Deck the Halls,
Ding Dong Merrily on High.
There’s even a hint of Pachelbel’s Canon in there. Somehow, even during
this section, with band members wearing Santa hats, the spirit of
Christmas is stretched as far as possible without ever
quite
becoming tacky. Rusby comes back on
stage, and introduces To Drive the Cold
Winter Away, a song about putting
grudges aside and drinking and chatting with neighbours. A ‘Rusbified and
Yorkshirefied’ version of Winter
Wonderland comes next, now on the Radio
2 playlist, Rusby beams. Sweet Bells
is tonight’s third version of While
Shepherds Watched and Rusby asks if
we’d be interested in a tour she’s thinking of putting on
just to
showcase the thirty plus renditions of that particular song. I’m pretty
sure she’s joking, but I’m equally sure she could make it work. At the end of the
second half, after massive cheering and applause, we are treated to an
encore: The Holly and The Ivy
followed by a Yorkshire version of We
Wish You a Merry Christmas. Rusby and
‘the boys’ receive a well deserved standing ovation for the uplifting
and festive evening of entertainment they’ve given us. Despite struggling at times with a troublesome
throat which could probably have done with complete rest and a few cosy
nights by the fire, Rusby was her bright and cheerful self, and I’ve no
doubt she’ll be welcomed back by Malvern audiences for many years to
come. Amy Rainbow
20-12-15 *Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire was Britain’s last deep coal mine which closed on Friday, 18 December. In 1984 there were more than 190,000 miners – thirty years on the British coal miner is no more.
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