"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!" sang Rohan de Lanerolle as he breezed on to stage with music to kick off the Christmas season.
That line, in fact the whole song, seemed to underline the tone of Festive Time in the City – one of the first Christmas musicals of the season, presented by Harpo Productions. Definitely not a traditional Christmas concert, this show seemed to perfectly depict those first few days of December, where the frenzied rush of Christmas has not set in yet, but subtle changes in the atmosphere around us indicate that "the most wonderful season of all" is upon us.
The show featured a selection of Colombo's favourite performers – Rohan de Lanerolle, Ishan de Lanerolle, Soul Sounds and the Little Sopranos.
Opening the show was Rohan who started off with an excellent rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing." These two songs were a great beginning to the show, delivered with a lot of ease and style.
What followed during the brief first half of the show were a few popular numbers such as "Get me to the church on time" and "On the street where you live."
The highlight of these though was Rohan's performance of "If I Can’t Love Her" from the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast. He was emotional without trying too hard and really conveyed the sense of defeat and helplessness felt by the beast.
Another commendable performance was that of "Hello Dolly" (sung by Shehara Liyanage of Soul Sounds, Rohan de Lanerolle and Ishan de Lanerolle) which brought in a sense of fun to the overall performance during the first half of the show.
The ultimate favourite of the show however, was six-year-old Anika Ratnayake who managed to steal most of the show and applause with her impressive rendition of "Away in a Manger." She gave off a cute and confident performance, down to sitting down and covering her ears in response to the thundering applause she received.
Her peers, the Little Sopranos, dressed in blue jeans and red T- shirts decked in red garlands, also walked on to stage to a chorus of "Aaws" from the audience. Their performance was fun and communicated a great sense of Christmas feel and magic. Their performance would have been even better though, if a little more choreography had been included.
Soul Sounds, accompanied by Soundarie David, also gave an inspired and excellent performance of traditional and contemporary Christmas carols.
To sum up Festive Time in the City, it was an intimate performance, with good connection between the performers and the audience, as well as a fair amount of participation from the audience. It was a different brand of Christmas concert – relatively informal in the sense that the audience could even request certain carols to be sung. In short, everyone had a good time- from the adults who sat back and appreciated the music to the kids who sat on the edge of their seats jigging to festive sounds of a city preparing for Christmas.
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