Review: Beautiful singing in enchanting winter treat at Warwick Arts Centre

What a musical treat of a double bill in the run-up to Christmas. Wonderful orchestral music, a charistmatic narrator and the voice of an angel all bring shivers to the spine and transport this reviewer back to the delights of childhood for 90 minutes.

Sanjeev Bhaskar of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42 fame is a very good choice to narrate the Prokovfiev’s enchanting tale of Peter And The Wolf, while the Aurora Orchestra bring the characters to life with brilliant evocative music. His voice is warm and engaging, without threatening to take over the dancing strings, quacking oboes, fluttering flutes and prowling horns. I loved this tale as a child and thoroughly enjoyed the exercise in imagination as the instruments describe the energy and movement of the characters. I did feel, however, that it may have been a little bit difficult for the younger children to engage in as without any animation or characters on stage, I got the sense that some of them were getting a bit restless.

Then came the magical Christmas tale, the Channel 4 film The Snowman, adapted from the picture book by Raymond Briggs. Having watched The Snowman and The Snowdog last year, I had not actually seen the original story for many years and was totally captivated to see it on the big screen with the wonderful orchestra. You really appreciate the brilliance of Howard Blake’s musical score - which includes the much-loved Walking In The Air - when you see the orchestra performing before you.

But the show is definitely stolen by the 11-year-old singer, Glyn Webster, who sings Walking In The Air. His voice is just beautiful - deserving of a standing ovation.

Sundari Cleal