A Fairytale For Christmas – 11 December 2025, Sheffield City Hall
Review by Claire Taranaski.
Coming to Sheffield for one night only as part of a nationwide tour was a sparkly evening of festive fun (or should I say festive craic) that will appeal to lovers of Irish entertainment, Christmas hits and wintery romcoms, especially if set in New York.
This is a show that I can see fans of revisiting year after year as part of their festive build up and loving every moment. What it lacks the coziness of a traditional Irish pub it makes up for with fun numbers and routines, tales of Irish St Stephen’s Day traditions and mass audience singalongs (from “Molly Malone” to “Tell Me Ma”). You can tell that this show is well-rehearsed and put together but also that everyone on stage is enjoying every minute of it as much as the audience is over the two hour set from the opening number of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” to the Christmas mega mix finale that got almost the entire audience on their feet and covering practically every seasonal song that had not been included elsewhere.
I was expecting my musical highlight to be “Fairytale of New York” especially as this was left to the penultimate number and although fun and upbeat and making good use of the four lead performers it for me lacked the emotion of the original. However, the hauntingly beautiful acoustic melodies of the four leads rendition of “Silent Night” merged with fiddle player Caitlin Forbes getting to showcase her vocal talents with “Danny Boy” will stay with me for a long time to come.
There are three different casts on the nationwide tour and is was cast one who brought the show in Sheffield with Shane Morgan, narrator and singer, oozing Irish charm and charisma from ever pore and who I can best describe as an Irish Martin Kemp. Fans of Love Actually and Four Weddings & A Funeral will particularly love his festive rendition of “Love Is All Around”. Peet Jackson is a talented banjo player with down to Earth Irish charm and who turned wonderfully into an Irish Noddy Holder for “Merry Christmas Everybody”.
However it was singer Molly Farmer and guitarist and singer Oliver Cave who were my favourite performances of the night. Molly gave me goosebumps in act one with her stunning rendition of “Oh Holly Night” before channelling Kelly Clarkson so well for her rendition of “Underneath The Tree” that if I had closed my eyes I would not have been able to tell the difference. It was disappointing she did not have more solo numbers in act two. Ironically the only Englishman in the cast, Oliver was already off to a good start performing one of my all time favourite Christmas songs “Merry Christmas Everyone” but it was when he channelled his inner David Bowie to perform “Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy” alongside Shane that blew me away before giving us a powerful moment of contemplation in his moving performance of “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)”.
Irish dancers always make me want to do Irish dancing myself and this group of professional dancers were no different, with incredible moves, big smiles always on their faces and the fastest costume changes I have ever seen. There stand out number for me was when they acted as the drums for the drummers to keep up with.
Behind the scenes, I must mention the lighting team who provided wonderful lighting throughout, from highlighting intimate soloists to providing shadows that created the illusions that the dancers were dancing their way across the sides of the auditorium; the faultless sound quality; the set design, which transported the audience to McGarth’s outdoor bar at a Christmas market (though it would have been great to make more use of the cast member behind the bar) and the costume department for all the festive red, green and sparkle anyone could ever need and as mentioned above some of the fastest costume changes I have ever seen.
For further information and tour dates visit https://afairytaleforchristmas.com/tickets/uk-and-ireland/
