Creating LOOKING A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS

Donmar Warehouse
3 min readDec 22, 2020

LOOKING A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS was filmed at St. Paul’s, The Actors’ Church in Covent Garden on Friday 11 December 2020 before being released on YouTube on Wednesday 16 December. Read on to take a look behind the scenes.

First up, health and safety. The concert was filmed when London was in Tier 2 restrictions and our brilliant stage management team, including Production Manager Kate West, Company Stage Manager Lizzie Donaghy and Stage Manager Rebecca Toland did an amazing job of creating a Covid-secure environment for everyone involved. Masks, distancing and hand sanitiser were very much at the ready all day!

Company Stage Manager Lizzie Donaghy and performer Imelda Staunton during filming. Photos: Marc Brenner

If you’ve seen the concert, you will have seen Designer Grace Smart’s snowy backdrop. Grace and her team created the effect by stringing together all of the tickets that went unsold this year.

The snowy backdrop created by stringing together unsold tickets

With rehearsals set to begin, the whole team lent a hand to add the finishing touches to the design. There’s no ‘I’ in theatre…

Putting the finishing touches to Grace Smart’s design

Director Simon Evans worked with the live performers and film crew to stage each performance and set up the perfect shots.

Sharon Rose, Giles Terera and Marc Antolin rehearse in The Actors’ Church
Rosalie Craig rehearses in The Actors’ Church
Director Simon Evans looks on during rehearsals

All music was recorded live during filming, with musicians Jen Whyte, Jo Nichols, Camilla Pay, Charlie Brown, Mike Davis, Chris Storr and Orchestrator Simon Hale overseen by Musical Supervisor Nigel Lilley. We are extremely grateful to PPL for supporting the concert and enabling us to work with these brilliant musicians.

Musician Jo Nichols and Musical Supervisor Nigel Lilley

Showtime! The concert was filmed and edited by Really Creative Media with sound design by Sound Quiet Time. The beautiful interior and exterior drone shots were captured by FireFlight Drone Ops.

The concert was captured on multiple cameras

We hope you’ll agree that The Actors’ Church is the perfect setting for a festive concert, and we would like to thank The Reverend Simon Grigg and all the team at St. Paul’s Church as well as Theatre Chaplaincy UK for working with us to make this event possible.

Filming LOOKING A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS
The beautiful setting of The Actors’ Church

Finally, on Wednesday 16 December, we were able to share the full concert with you on YouTube, where it is available to watch until Tuesday 5 January. Enjoy watching and all the best for the festive season!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sQeAw4PZ58

--

--

Donmar Warehouse

From our iconic warehouse space in the heart of London’s West End, we create world-class theatre with international impact.