Happy New Year!

With a sensation something like relief (although tinged with the post-Christmas blues) we tumble into the New Year in the Beaufort Bar. December has been a bit of a logistical toothache, with national holidays, “adverse weather conditions”, and stress levels rising as Private Drama offices prepared to close over the festive period. Christmas felt like small compensation for the disruption it caused to our nice, smooth cabaret machine!

However, as is always the case when St Nick is on his way, the atmosphere among the guests was as jolly as the season requires, and Christmas songs were the order of the day – every day. Chestnuts Roasted, people were recommended to Have Themselves A Merry Little Christmas (sic) and warned that this year, hearts would be given to Someone Different, and all the while, as shops, offices, gyms, galleries and museums closed their doors so their staff could head home to their roast dinners, the buzz of activity in The Savoy didn’t falter as hundreds of employees postponed their own festivities to ensure their guests had themselves a Merry Big Christmas!

So with an enormous Thank You to the lovely Leanne Jones for supplying Christmas Day with a slice of the West End, and to the superb Nicola Emmanuelle for singing the Savoy into 2011, as well as all our wonderful artistes who made Christmas at The Savoy so musically special, I return to my desk to begin the New Year, and as I gaze at the as yet empty pages of February and March, I can’t help but look forward to the challenge that will no doubt be presented by December 2011!

Task #1; ban Slade.