For many years, I have wondered if cheesiness can kill you. Now, I finally know the answer. Cheesiness, even on a grand scale, cannot kill you or else I would have died a couple of days ago at the Christmas Carol Singalong at the Royal Albert Hall. But the good news first: I have finally figured out how to use public transport in London. Just double the time the website says it will take you, and you’ll make it to your destination in time. This time, I even arrived at the Royal Albert Hall with half an hour to spare. And I am glad I did, because for the life of me I could not find the stairway to the arena. The fact that all the ushers, instead of taking pity on me and actually helping me, vaguely waved towards a staircase that you cannot see unless you are standing right in front of it, did not help much. But let’s not grumble about minor inconveniences.
The hall was stunningly beautiful. Decorated with lots of lights and two Christmas trees, it nearly warmed the heart of my inner Grinch. I really had trouble describing it until someone behind me uttered the word ‘gobsmacked’, which not only describes my feelings towards the hall, but which I like so much that I will be using it as often as possible from now on. And just to make sure that the hall was at its best, some people had even taken the trouble to bring their own lights and decorations to do up their boxes. But what is more, people had taken the trouble to bring their own lights and decorations to do up themselves. Never have I felt more underdressed at a concert. Christmas jumpers were just the rage in the hall, as were Santa hats and reindeer antlers. One person had randomly grabbed a hat out of his treasure trove of carnival costumes and was wearing something that looked like half a roast chicken. Another had wrapped himself in a chain of lights that would have put any Christmas tree to shame.
To my great surprise, there was a complete orchestra and choir. While I’ve learned never to judge an orchestra by its appearance, I was somewhat surprised that the male players wore white jackets. I have long been an opponent of wearing black on stage, chiefly because I always manage to soil my clothes with raisin so that most of the time I look as if I’ve baked something right before going on stage. Nevertheless, when asked what colour should be worn on stage, white would not necessarily have been my first choice. Also, the poor lads (and lasses, to be correct) had to wear Santa hats during the second half of the event, which is when I began to pity them from the bottom of my heart. Imagine practicing the violin every day from the age of five, then making it through some very rough years in a conservatoire, where you practice even more, only to land a job accompanying a singalong. Repeatedly. For a couple of days before Christmas. How do you not kill yourself in these circumstances? The attire of the choir members was a tiny bit better, although many of the ladies wore quite a bit of sparkle (note to myself: buy more sparkly clothes to better fit into host country) and looked like they were heading off to a party. Also, the poor things were forced to accompany their singing with semi-entertaining gestures and movements, which did not only embarrass me but seemingly also themselves.
The most entertaining part of the singalong were the hosts. There were two of them. There was an elderly gentleman wearing an elf waistcoat who told us that he had been doing the singalong for no fewer than 22 years, which just goes to show that the lives of the upper class are no joke either. Apart from cracking jokes that must already have been old when he was born, and commenting on the fact that while his jokes were old, the audience still laughed about them, our kindly host took a great deal of pleasure in treating the audience with as much disdain is he could without getting fired form the job. On top of that, he felt it necessary to shame a few people who came in late by calling them out on it and asking the technicians to put a spotlight on them. That made me wonder yet again why a people as private as the English are so obsessed with shaming each other. But then it occurred to me that maybe I was looking at the problem the wrong way. Maybe the English are so private because every time they engage with another human being they are shamed because of some minor misdemeanour.
The second host was a blonde lady called Louise who was about half the age of host number one (and oh, how my feminist heart bleeds every time I am confronted with the old bugger – youngish blondie combination that people still can’t seem to get over). She wore a gold dress with darkish stripes in odd places, which made her look like an Oscar statue that had been scrubbed down with the wrong king of polish. Nevertheless, I liked her a good deal better than elf waistcoat man because she could sing and she said, ‘You’re all gorgeous’. Also, she seemed to take an active interest in her audience that was not geared towards finding people’s weaknesses so she could make fun of them. At some point she asked the audience how many people had been to a singalong before – and alas, there was a stunning number of repeat offenders – only to tell us that she had also been there the year before but felt awfully sick because she was pregnant. (Are you really sure that your sickness was due to your pregnancy or might that have been an adverse reaction to the show?)
The setup was a surprise of its own. As I have been to tons of singalongs I thought I knew what was coming, but nothing could have prepared me for the two hours of kitsch and heartache that were to follow. Also, in Austria we take music seriously. In fact, we take music so seriously that having fun while making music is seen as blasphemy, so about 90% of the singalongs are taken up by rehearsals that culminate in a fifteen-minute performance in which the hall is transformed into a choir of four voices (five if some of the sopranos are feeling especially adventurous). That’s our idea of fun. If by the end of it you’re not completely exhausted and feel the need to brush up on your musicianship, you’ve done something wrong. In London, they have a somewhat more relaxed attitude towards it all. Nobody even bothers to give you the sheet music to the songs. All you get are the lyrics which, as I was soon to find out, is of limited use if you don’t know the melody of the songs. Also, nobody expects you to rehearse in any way. You just yell along to the orchestra and choir (if you know the melody) or whisper (if you don’t know them like me). There was only one song where the host asked us to sing the harmony if we knew it and to please not sing the harmony if we didn’t (Oh, the humour! The humour!) to which I would like to say that I would have been happy to sing the harmony had I been given any sheet music.
The singalong started in a way I had not expected – with the host telling the audience to shake hands with their neighbours. (Not good! Had I wanted to talk to someone, I would have brought a friend.) Next, we were asked to wave up to the boxes and the people in the cheap seats and say, ‘Good afternoon! How are you all doing?’, to which the people in loftier heights were supposed to answer, ‘Mind your own business!’ Yes, our host kept the jokes right coming. But in the end, it was good I had gotten to know my neighbours, because the tiny bit of affection I had developed for them stopped me from asking my neighbour if he was kidding me during ‘He’s got the whole world in his hands’, when his clapping was so off that I began to suspect someone had placed the gentleman there just to annoy me. All in all, the singalong was the cheesiest thing I have ever witnessed, and I come from a family where you have to sing under the Christmas tree in full view of your presents before you are allowed to open any of them. Believe me, you don’t know what pleading singing is until you’ve heard a teenager’s heartfelt and slightly rushed rendition of ‘Silent Night’ so that she could get her presents. Speaking of which: when it was time to sing ‘Silent Night’ the host asked us to do so in our own language, but of course we would not know what he was saying if we were not from the UK. ‘But, of course, you won’t know what it is like to have to deal with the wrath of someone from Austria’, I thought. There was one moment that nearly melted my heart when the children in the audience were asked to sing the first verse of ‘Away in a manger’ by themselves before being joined by the adults, who were going to ruin it, if our host was to believed. It really was a beautiful rendition. I was happy until our host engaged in mock crying and said, ‘Well, get over it!’ Thanks for ruining that for me.
The last bit of the show was taken up by a medley of Christmas songs. When Louise intoned ‘Oh holy night’, people dug out their cell phones, my second neighbour put a hand to her heart because she was so touched and I began to pray for a speedy death. My wish was nearly granted when Louise switched to ‘Christ is the Lord’ and I thought I would catch fire at any moment and realized that I should have prayed for a speedy and painless death. When Louise threatened…ahm announced that she was going to sing a song that the children might have wished to hear and the adults might have hoped not to hear, I was ready to bolt because I was afraid she might sing ‘Last Christmas’. Fortunately, it was only ‘Let it go’, which enthused one adult audience member to much that he got up on his chair to sing and dance along to it. Another highlight was ‘Sleigh Ride’. I swear I don’t know who started the wave, but I know that it never ended. Even the less busy orchestra members joined it as did one of my neighbours, which worried me quite a bit, because he was holding a cup of beer. Also, our host informed us that now was the right time to use the sleigh bells we had brought (and yes, you guessed it – some people had brought sleigh bells) or to alternatively jiggle the loose change in our pockets.
By that time, I was more than ready to go home because when forced to be jovial, I always turn horribly grumpy. There was only one boy of about eight who hated the whole thing as much as I did and refused to be cheered up. I really felt I needed to take a stand against all this madness, which in my case means that I took a seat while everyone else was on their feet and dancing. This earned me quite a few surprised looks from the people in my immediate vicinity, but allowed me to duck the paper planes that people had begun to make out of the song texts and which hurt quite a bit when they hit you. But it also gave me a direct look into the abyss of madness. And believe me, when you are surrounded by 5000 people dancing exaltedly to ‘Merry X-Mas’, you are staring madness right in the fact. When we finally intoned ‘Hark the herald angels sing’, one person got so carried away that she raised her right arm. Just a word of warning to all the people out there: raising your right arm during a mass spectacle is NOT a good idea when there are Austrians present because they might misinterpret that and want to jump at you.
When it was over, I was so glad that I wanted to run right to the exit, but could not because the crowd refused to dissolve until it had sung ‘Old lang syne’ while holding hands. All in all, this was really a one in a lifetime experience, not only because the singalong will transfer to Westminster Hall in the future and thus never be repeated in this form, but also because I will never, never, never ever do it again. The good thing, though, is that I have high hopes for the year 2018. Because no matter which concerts I go to, which musicians cross my path and which music I get exposed to, I know it is going to be better than the singalong I had just been to, or as I like to call it – the cheesiest singalong in the world.
