FEATURE:
From the Screen to the Studio
PHOTO CREDIT: The Standard
Could the Next Step for the Beloved Hannah Waddingham Be a Debut Studio Album?
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IT is not unusual for actors…
to have a separate career in music. As I have said in different features, actors do step into music and can find success. The other way around is more common I think. Artists such as Lady Gaga going into acting. Maybe it is more natural and easier from that experience of live performance and videos to transition into acting. Maybe actors need an extra level of experience to go into a studio or adapt to music. I guess there is a natural connection between the disciplines. An attraction that means we see some awesome artists take to the small and big screen. To me, it is harder and more appealing when actors go into music. It can be harder to get it right. Perhaps there is more pressure on their shoulders or that emphasis on the voice is more than you have on artists and their performances. I did hear that Florence Pugh was releasing an album. That was reported a while ago now. Let us hope that this happens next year. With an amazing voice that is quite deep and smoky, she old head in various sonic directions. Whether she is going to be more Folk and Indie or goes in a more Jazz and Soul direction (or splices them together), I know that it will be fantastic. When it comes to an actor born for thee studio, there is one that spring to mind. Hannah Waddingham, in addition to being a great actor and comic force, is someone who can definitely hold a tune!
Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas was shown in November. It is available to stream here. I am going to come to a review of it. Even if one might think Hannah Waddingham is suited more for Opera or maybe showtunes, I think that there are no limits when it comes to her music potential. It does seem, in the interview for Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, the actor was looking to talk more about her music influences. I didn’t see any questions asking whether she would be interested in an album. I can see a studio album coming. Waddingham will get offers for stage work and musicals. I think an album that does not necessarily have to be theatrical could come to light. She could go in any direction. I want to start with an interview with Gay Times they were keen to find out more from one of the most loved humans in the world. Someone who is a national (British) treasure:
“Thank you, Hannah! Home for Christmas feels quintessentially you, which I can imagine is quite hard to do with Christmas because the genre has been rinsed to death. When creating this special, how did you make sure that it would scream Hannah Waddingham? Or rather, Wadders?
Because I think when you’re just off 50, you know who you are, and you know who you’re not. So, Apple were very kind listening to me and my manager and we wanted it to be exactly what we wanted it to be. They were totally along for the ride and really facilitated that. When we would have meetings, even in the first pitch I said, ‘It’s very important to me to have the London Gay Men’s Chorus because I’m a patron of theirs.’ I love the idea of them flooding the stage. I said, ‘It’s important that I acknowledge my mum and why we’re there. If I could have the English National Opera chorus, who have been uncles and aunties to me all my life, that would be an amazing privilege. And my guests have to be people that I have a connection with, regardless of whether they’re known or not. And I have to have a live, beautiful big band and I don’t want anyone on that stage who can’t cut it live. I want everything to be done so that we go back to a bygone era of live performances.’
Christmas is ruled by pop divas. We love the men, but not as much. Did you take any inspiration from any pop divas when doing this special?
No, basically! I really didn’t. I would never. That’s why I contest the whole “Queen of Christmas” thing because I think I’m a very different beast. I come from the acting world, the theatre world. And I think there’s room for all of us. I was very clear in my pitch that I wanted it to be, at its heart, a theatrical production because that’s in my bones. That’s all I’ve ever known. So, for my television audience to meet the theatre audience that I’ve come from and for it to be encapsulated on Apple TV+ as a platform to, hopefully be a hearty perennial, that’s all I really wanted. I wanted people to just forget their troubles, come in and feel like they’ve been absorbed into this glamorous, opulent environment.
I was absorbed. And you’re right, there can be multiple queens. Why does there have to be one?
Yeah, we’re all very different. I would never say that Mariah Carey was any more important than Kelly Clarkson or Michael Bublé. There’s room for all of us. All the food groups are represented.
When did you first notice the LGBTQ+ community’s support? You are huge with queer women, when I told my best friend who’s a lesbian, and my sister who’s a lesbian, that I was interviewing you… They went nuts.
I don’t know why I am! I really don’t know why I am. I mean, I’m here for it. I think probably in musical theatre, I would get a lot of letters back in the day, which is just so lovely and why I was so thrilled to do Eurovision as well. It was so lovely coming out on the stage and being engulfed by this gorgeous wave of support from the gay community”.
I am going to move onto Los Angeles Times and their interview with Hannah Waddingham. The more I read her words about the Christmas special, the more I think he infectiousness of performing live in a big show will compel Waddingham to go into the studio and maybe record some original material. It is clear that there would be big demand for an album from Hannah Waddinghgam:
“You become emotional at a couple of points, including when you talk about growing up in the theater and having your daughter, who was 8 at the time, in the coliseum watching you onstage at the same age you were when you watched your mother perform.
There was my little girl in the box I’d always been in — the most glorified, beautiful, stunning little toddler pen for me, where I would be left safely, and she was in there at exactly the same age. Then my mom was sitting at the back of the auditorium with my dad, but my mom has Parkinson’s and is in a wheelchair. When I was putting this together, I didn’t know whether either of my parents were going to make it through to see that day, and it got me. But I wanted to keep a lid on that, because it’s not good for your voice, and I had to sing “Oh, Holy Night” completely clean.
Why did you dedicate that specific song to your mom and daughter?
It’s my favorite beautiful, traditional Christmas song. Often Christmas specials are about the show, and I wanted it to really be a moment of quiet and focus. I wanted to let my guard down and sing for my mom and my daughter. I wanted to just be center stage, mike stand, no bells and whistles, and just say to people, “This is why I’m still here. I can still strip it back.” It was unbelievable the silence in the auditorium for that. I don’t know how I got through it, but it’s the best I’ve ever sung in my life.
Had you sung with the English National Opera Chorus before?
No. When the English National Opera Chorus heard that I was doing it at the coliseum and why, some of the opera singers from my mom’s era who are still there offered to come and sing with me. When they came to rehearse, they ran on the stage and were hugging me and crying going, “We couldn’t be more proud of you! We all watch everything you do!”
Tell me about some of those song choices and musical guests.
I didn’t want famous people for famous’ sake. I wanted people who mean something to me. Luke Evans and I have known each other since we were 20. Sam Ryder I think is just one of our greatest talents. “Please Come Home for Christmas” was on Leslie Odom Jr.’s album, and it made my head go dizzy. I thought, “I have to sing that with him.” Also, I said to my little girl, “You choose someone,” and before I even finished the sentence, she said “Leslie Odom Jr.!” She’s obsessed with “Hamilton”.
I am going to wrap things up soon. The Independent were among those who showed a lot of love for Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas. After a huge last few years that has seen her appear in huge shows like Ted Lassso, it must have been quite an event being at the London Coliseum:
“Hannah Waddingham must be knackered. The West End legend slash one-woman beacon of joy started off 2023 by saying goodbye to Ted Lasso, the big-hearted Apple TV+ football comedy that earned her legions of fans on both sides of the Atlantic. She returned to theatreland to preside over this year’s Olivier Awards, then earned national treasure status in the UK during her stint co-hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. It was a perfectly pitched performance in more ways than one: a classically trained singer, Waddingham hit all the high notes in musical segments and leaned into the competition’s inherent camp. And – move over Mariah – she’s just put in a double shift as the new Queen of Christmas, lending her megawatt grin to festive ad spots for M&S and Baileys.
Her last hurrah before clocking off for the festive season? Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas – an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza for Apple, filmed at the London Coliseum. It’s reminiscent of those Audience With… specials that used to crop up on ITV’s Sunday night schedule – look closely and you’ll spot that channel’s poster boy Dermot O’Leary in the audience – but with some additional big-budget gloss (Waddingham and her guests are bathed in a glorious golden glow throughout). The perks of working with a megabucks tech giant, presumably – although Waddingham is definitely giving Apple its money’s worth. From the moment her cab pulls up outside the Coliseum, she’s belting out a festive ditty, charisma turned up to 11.
Once inside, she’s greeted by a receiving line of adoring Ted Lasso co-stars as she makes her way through the corridors; the effect is a bit like a very glamorous remake of Peter Kay’s “(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?” video. There’s just enough time for a sweet pep talk from her young daughter Kitty before Waddingham sweeps onto the stage, resplendent in a sequinned gown straight out of Dreamgirls (her dress code, she quips later, is “Christmas business casual”).
What follows is essentially an old-fashioned variety show. The musical numbers are interspersed with a smattering of physical comedy (spare a thought for poor Nick Mohammed, aka Ted Lasso’s Coach Nate, who spends much of the run time suspended from the rafters after being “hoist by his own petard”, as Waddingham puts it) and a few sketches that double up as Richmond AFC reunions. Her Lasso co-stars put in a game performance, mugging for the cameras like court jesters while dancing on stage in tailcoats and brandishing candy canes, although some of their skits seem to be more of an excuse to trade compliments and “love you’s” rather than punchlines.
There’s also the obligatory appearance from 2022 Eurovision runner-up Sam Ryder, plus duets with Hamilton’s Lesley Odom Jr, matching Waddingham’s sartorial splendour in a quilted silver suit, and with Beauty and the Beast’s Luke Evans (the pair share a friendship going back two decades). Phil Dunster, who plays Ted Lasso’s Grealish-like Jamie Tartt, also gets the chance to soft-launch a potential side hustle as a Bublé-esque crooner when he gatecrashes a rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.
Waddingham is full of effusive praise for her guests (“I love you to bits and bits and bits!” she exclaims to Dunster and singing duo The Fabulous Lounge Swingers, after their song) – of course it’s a little luvvy-ish (what did you expect, darling?) but the overall effect is one of winning sincerity. The Coliseum is a venue weighted with emotional significance for the star. Her mother, the aptly named Melodie Kelly, was a mezzo-soprano in the English National Opera, she tells us, and the young Hannah would spend hours watching her perform there. No wonder she gets a bit weepy when she dedicates “O Holy Night” to her parents and her own daughter”.
We have seen great examples of actors who are natural musicians. That they have this awesome voice or a natural affinity for music. From Jeff Goldblum to Zendaya, there are these cases of actors naturally taking to music. I do think that Hannah Waddingham could be a classic case of an acclaimed and established actor going the studio via acting and theatre. Maybe people have their ideas of what her sound would be. She is someone unpredictable in terms of her roles, so you couldn’t really guess where she might head. After the hugely positive reception of Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, there is that curiosity and desire. Maybe 2024 is a year when we will see a debut studio album from one of…
THE adored Hannah Waddingham.