Love Actually with Live Orchestra, Symphony Hall, Birmingham - review

Watching the classic Christmas flick Love Actually – it’s pretty fair to call it a classic after 15 years – last night was everything we’d hoped.

Having snapped up two tickets for my wife, that’s the story I’m sticking with anyway, the Birmingham Symphony Hall provided the beautiful backdrop for a magical evening.

Hats off to the award-winning conductor, George Jackson, who led from the front with enthusiasm and gusto.

The real stars of the show, however, were the Senbla Concert Orchestra. From the opening note they had the audience entranced.

The opening credits also showed us what we could expect for the rest of the film. Music filled the entire auditorium and then the orchestra continued playing during the opening airport scene, when Huge Grant – who plays the best-looking and suave Prime Minister Britain has ever produced – talks about what the film is all about as happy couples and families embrace each other at an airport.

Sometimes it was easy to miss them playing, it was so understated it just blended into the rest of the film.

But then there were the romantic scenes, and that was the band really ramped up the volume and brought the scenes even more to life.

Moments such as when Colin Firth, playing Jamie, flew and drove to Portugal to tell Lucia Moniz, who plays Aurelia, he wants to marry her.

There’s nothing wrong, apparently that her father is also more than willing to sell-off her not-as-good-looking sister, but each to their own.

Or when Andrew Lincoln, as Mark, thinks it’s okay to tell his so-called best friend’s wife, Juliet ( Keira Knightly),his undying love for her using huge notes written on cardboard and then walk off like nothing had ever happened.

Either way, it gave the orchestra another chance to show their skills playing along to Silent Night.

The best sub-plot of the entire film is the superb interaction between the late, great Alan Rickman’s character Harry, the sublime Emma Thompson, who plays his wife, Karen, and the flirty little minks Heike Makatsch, as Mia.

It never fails to hit a nerve with women across the world and I could feel my wife, Kelly’s, hand grasp mine even harder every time Mia flirted with Harry, and felt her daggers when he bought her that gold necklace, which also was when the genius of Rowan Atkinson came to the fore during the gift-wrapping scene.

Kelly must’ve seen this film a hundred times but still she can’t help muttering a few choice words about the younger love rival whenever she appears, as well as commenting on how beautiful Thompson looks in the film (she’s not wrong there either).

Anyway, the upshot is all these little scenes are great on their own, but with a full orchestra adding to the tension, drama, sadness and joy that fills the movie, it makes for a spectacular combination.

There was a nice touch too towards the end as the conductor, followed by the entire orchestra, donned Santa hats for their rendition of Mariah Carey’s Christmas classic, All I Want for Christmas Is You, which sees a very young Thomas Brodie-Sangster, as Sam, learning the drums in little-over two weeks and playing to win the heart of his young love.

We won’t go into how he’s able to evade security on numerous occasions to give her a kiss goodbye.

There were also amply occasions when the band played along with ageing rocker and ex-heroin addict Billy Mack, wonderfully characterised by the great Bill Nighy, especially his Christmas version of Love is all Around Me.

Kelly also particularly enjoyed the wedding scene, when a band and singer break into All You Need is Love when Juliet and Peter, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, tie the knot, especially when the orchestra’s trumpet players joined those in the film by standing up and playing along to the chorus.

My wife summed it all up by saying it was a wonderfully-magical night that really got everyone into the Christmas spirit. And I’ve got to be honest, I quite enjoyed it myself too.