SALOS, under the steady hand of experienced director Pam Tucker, has produced a Christmas-flavoured show that draws together the many and varied talents of the Company.

Apart from the occasional Christmas tree here and there, the stage is essentially bare.

The opening bracket, Christmas in The Snow, showcases the singing talents of the entire cast, the delightful costumes and the cute three-piece band-piano(Sue Penhale), percussion (Harry Hewson) and flute (Robert Brown). The costumes, designed by CyndyTrezise and Pam Tucker were generally well -presented with colour and sparkle, but it needs to be said that the men must pay more attention to their shoes as so many of them wore large clunky clodhoppers, many of which needed  polish and a good buff up.

David Roberts gave a warm and sentimental version of the popular World War 1 song Roses of Picardy, and next was Katrin Treloar’s powerful mezzo with City Of Dreams. Genevieve Venning’s Laughing Song was fun, and the next bracket included I’ll Walk With God, sung well
by Bob Daniel.

There was some comedy about “Trousers” from Christine Southby, Noel Carthew and Vincent Fameli, and then Roslyn Fleming, with a lovely, I Have Dreamed.

The audience then became involved with Rudolph and his florid proboscis under the direction of Michael Feast, and the comedy between Charlie Burke who wanted Just One Last Kiss from Sue Whittaker, worked well.

Sean Nugent’s  Camelot had a whisper of Richard Harris in it, and Christmas With SA Light Opera featured Katrin Treloar’s fine voice again and included some nice duets from Genevieve and Michael, also David and Roslyn.

Christmas at the start of Act 2 became Antipodean with an Aussie Outback Special including some of the most wonky jokes this critic has heard!

Charlie Burkes’ number, Oh Lord It’s Hard to be Humble was an amusing interlude and the number, If I Were Not Upon The Stage with Marlene, Pam, Sue, Charlie, Geoff and Michael was a very clever piece of stage business, performed extremely well.

The show finished with largely show biz songs concluding with a fine version of The Holy City by David Roberts, and of course the audience had the opportunity to play their part by joining in with carols.

The marvellous talents of Pam Tucker are a credit to her and the hard- working, energetic cast of The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year Annual Christmas Variety Show.

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