Kate Rusby

Lizz Page 10 December 2019

Yorkshire folk legend Kate Rusby, elfin, excitable, witty and so down to earth it almost makes you want to weep was a shining star on the stage at the Theatre Royal last night as part of her Christmas tour across the country, which she’s been doing for the past 15 years. She’s released five Christmas albums alongside many others, and Holly Head, her new release, centres around the songs sung between Armistice Day and New Year’s Eve in pubs in South Yorkshire and in Cornwall. It’s these folk songs, heritage songs and pagan elements to Kate’s work that I find interesting, so was looking forward to seeing how she reflected Christmas in her own inimitable way.

The stage was suitable decorated for the season, with a reindeer, delicate lighting and Rusby resplendent in green and red glitter. With a nine-piece band, including a brass ensemble, accordion and double bass she brought the Christmas spirit flying into Norwich in spades, with classics like Winter Wonderland and While Shepherds Watched sitting pretty alongside some of her own pieces. Two in particular stood out for me – my favourite carol, The Coventry Carol, sung with sinister focus and minor chords, with electric guitars aching for a gut-wrenching solo, the theatre all of a sudden plunged into frozen fear as we felt the menace of Herod killing all first born offspring in a rage. I also loved The Holly King, based on a pagan tale, filled with the summer greening and the coming of ice and snow. Kate talked to the audience between every song with great humour, about Christmas, traditions, her career, her band and whether the Christmas Radio Times was out yet. She clearly loves her job, and her generosity of spirit truly showed when the band performed a lively and expertly accomplished set of a few songs on their own, which was a highlight of the evening. In some ways I would have liked there to be more of an ancient nature to the songs she chose to sing, and that the musicians had been given a little more space to really cut loose, but there were, I’m sure, many in the audience who liked hearing some more traditional tracks.

Things got a little silly in a good way towards the end of the night – I won’t spoil it for you, but if you’ve never seen a super tall and narrow Irishman playing a balalaika dressed as a wine bottle then you haven’t lived. For two hours there were singalongs and laughing and a song about a hippopotamus and her incredible voice, but the main thing I will remember from this show is the sense of community and intimacy that Kate managed, through wit and warmth to bring a very large room filled with many many people.