Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics Choice Awards winner Hannah Waddingham takes the London Coliseum stage for her first holiday special, Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas. The Apple TV+ musical event will premiere on November 22, 2023 and features the star of stage and screen spreading holiday cheer with a selection of classic Christmas songs.
The trailer teases a reunion of Ted Lasso stars, and in a press conference in support of Home for Christmas, Waddingham talked about what else viewers can expect when they tune in to the one-hour special.
Hannah Waddingham Interview:
How did the Home for Christmas special come together?
Hannah Waddingham: “Well, I had guested on a couple of things here and there. And actually, in basic terms, my fabulous manager, Nick Todisco, said to me, ‘You know, we should actually do something here because you have such a beloved fan base from theater,’ both in the West End and on Broadway for like 22 years of my life. It was the first thing I ever did. And he was like, ‘People should see that. People should see that you are not just the bits and pieces you’ve sung on Ted Lasso,’ but, you know, that as well.
[Jason] Sudeikis saying, ‘We’ve got to get you singing.’ And me saying, ‘Well, why would a football club owner sing?’ And he was like, ‘Because you’re going to sing. We are not gonna not have you singing.’
I have a lot of people who’ve had my back that I need to be grateful for. And so, when we thought what home would it have? Apple was such a natural choice because they had celebrated that part of my career. We just said to them, ‘We would love to do a thing, but it needs to be on stage to have that part of my life very present, joining the newest part of my life that people know me mostly for.’
And they were straight away, ‘We are in. Let’s do it. What do you want it to look like? What do you want it to sound like?’ And they’ve been absolutely amazing bedfellows, and I couldn’t be more proud.
I don’t usually toot my horn, but I’m so proud of this special.”
Why was the London Coliseum the perfect home for this special?
Hannah Waddingham: “It was the only home that I could possibly imagine. And there’s another way in which Apple was incredible. You can imagine the magnificent venues that they were leveling at me, and I couldn’t believe the great privilege of what they were coming out with. And I hope that we will circle back to another one of those venues in particular.
But for this one, for my first foray into this, the meeting of theater and TV together, it had to be where it all started for me, which was sitting as a little girl in the theater – in the orchestras Americans call it, but in the stalls in the UK we call it. Sitting as a little girl watching the English National Opera with my mom singing on that stage as a mezzo-soprano for 30 years at the home of the English International Opera of the London Coliseum. It was a no-brainer.
I couldn’t believe that Apple managed to get that theater for me, and in no uncertain terms. We were there for a whole week, really bedded in. And then when the English International Opera Chorus, five or six of whom are still choristers from my mum’s era, when they offered to come and sing with me on that stage, I mean, makes my throat go, gulp. Beautiful.”
Can you talk about how you chose the songs to perform?
Hannah Waddingham: “Well, the biggest thing for me is the psychology of an audience. I said that to my musical supervisor. I said we need to walk on that stage … and because, of course, there is the theater community globally that will know me, and they’re in the pocket already. But for people who don’t know me purely from Ted Lasso doing the bits and pieces of singing I did, I need to let them know that I know what I’m doing. I need to let them know that the band know what they’re doing. The backing vocalists know what they’re doing.
So you need to come out and slap everyone around the face, metaphorically speaking, with the first song. Slap them around the face with the second song, and then they know where they are. They can kick their shoes off and go, ‘Okay, she’s got this. The band have got this.’
I’m very interested always in the psychology of a live audience. I wanted to let them know that they didn’t need to worry about my voice. I know what I’m doing. My guests knew what they were doing. And I just wanted people to feel relaxed and happy and be taken on a journey as much as we do in Ted Lasso, that thing of before you know it, you are laughing and crying within a minute of each other.”
This special includes many special guests from across your career and your life. What challenges were there in fitting everybody in in less than an hour?
Hannah Waddingham: “Well, you know, when something is less than an hour like that, you need to make sure that you have absolutely the cream of the crop. And I was offered some fabulous guests, but I didn’t feel like I had a particular connection with them. I felt like they would be there for showy off, for like [the] show’s sake. And I wanted people that I knew, one, would bring it and bring it straight away. We barely even needed to do another take.
I had to have that first. I had to have people that have been in my life for, God, 25 years in the form of Scott Baker and Patrick Davy, The Fabulous Lounge Swingers. I knew I wanted the cast of Ted Lasso and I could have only dreamt that so many of them were like, ‘Hell yeah, we are in.’
And then the other artists… I have Leslie Odom Jr., Luke Evans, Sam Ryder. They are all people that I am massive fans of. And people like Luke Evans, who I’ve known from theater since we were about 20 years old. I think that you feel that. You feel that there is nothing inauthentic.”
There is nothing that’s like here today, gone tomorrow, just for the sake of the cameras. Leslie Odom Jr, I told him, was very much there because when I asked my, at the time, eight-year-old daughter who she would like me to sing with, the first thing that came out of her mouth was just like, ‘Mommy, please, please let it be Leslie Odom Jr.’
So all of the people that I had, they needed to be there with me. And I was just so thrilled that they could all converge on a very hot, sweaty 27th of May in London.”
Many of your Ted Lasso co-stars are in this special. How did they react when you first approached them and told them what you wanted to do?
Hannah Waddingham: “They were all just like, ‘Absolutely. When are we doing it? Oh God. Oh God, what are you going to ask me to dance? Are you going to ask me to sing?’
And I was like, ‘Hold on, hold on.’ Everyone was so keen out of the gate.”
The dresses were absolutely gorgeous. Can you talk about them and the look of the special?
Hannah Waddingham: “My beloved stylist, James Yardley, he and I do everything together. It is a completely collaborative effort, and he knows that I’m all about tone. The right tone for the right thing. It was obvious for us that we wanted to have a British designer. So, there is no one that makes a corset like Suzanne Neville.
James and I went to Suzanne and said, ‘We want to have these beautiful outfits that are timeless, first.’ You wouldn’t say they’re necessarily like 1930s or 1950s or now. They’re just completely timeless. I don’t want to look overtly, like with bows and all the rest of it, Christmassy.
The collaborative effort of myself and James and Suzanne, I couldn’t be happier with it. Honestly, every single element that I have from the set design by Misty Buckley, the lighting designer, Al Gorton, Hamish Hamilton, directing it. With that group of people around you and my manager floating around on top of it all overseeing it, and then the broader umbrella of Apple TV+, I was really going to have to bring it to come up to that creative team’s level.
And thankfully, I think it all exploded and then some.
What do you hope the audience will take away from this special?
Hannah Waddingham: “Joy. Joy. Old school love and joy, positivity because, you know, we are in such a mess of unkindness and selfishness at the moment in the world. I know that there are far more important things in the world on a global scale, but everyone needs distraction. Everyone needs to smile. Everyone needs to shed a tear when they need to.
And if I can provide that for 45 minutes as a little, you know, pill of happiness in a glass for them, then I hope that’s what this is.”
Aside from all the glitz, the parties, and the goodies, what does Christmas mean to you?
Hannah Waddingham: “Well, it means just that to me. You know, I’m running around like a lunatic most of the time. This is why I wanted Scott Baker and Patrick Davey, my two great pals, The Fabulous Lounge Swingers in the show. People like them are Christmas to me. They are my daughter’s godfathers.
I want to have people around me that have been there for me all my life, and they are two of them. People that I can be low-key with and just eat and drink and chill out, hunker down. I’m not a materialistic kind of girl. So that’s all.
(Laughing) Happiness, health, and lots of lovely booze.”
Do have a favorite moment or song from Home for Christmas?
Hannah Waddingham: “Probably my favorite moment was singing ‘O Holy Night’ to my mom and to my daughter. The unbelievable timing of the fact that my daughter was eight when we shot this, and she was sitting in the box where I sat from the age of eight, is kind of weird that she was eight sitting there and observing with her little spirit and her little heart, seeing her mommy standing there when I had sat there and seen my mommy.
And then my mom is sitting at the back of the stalls. To have my mom there at all when I didn’t even know she was going to make it…she’s heavily inflicted with Parkinson’s disease, bless her. It was a big deal for me to get her there in her wheelchair.
And my father who had gone through quintuple heart surgery while I was shooting the third season of Ted Lasso, to have them both there and to have my daughter… If I never did anything again, this special would be my greatest achievement.”
What other holiday specials served as inspirations for Home for Christmas?
Hannah Waddingham: “It was more pitching it in a way that I think perhaps other specials haven’t touched on as much lately. My main pitch in terms of tone was somewhere between Dean Martin and Carol Burnett. That style of, you know, having people over for the holidays, having people dropping in, in their finery.
I mean, I feel like it’s a bygone era with people in beautiful dinner jackets and beautiful dresses. I was so keen for the band to be in their tuxes and my backing vocalists. Even one of the backing vocalists, Haley, said to me, ‘What are we going to wear?’ And I went, ‘I want you to feel like a million dollars.’
And that is it. I want everyone to come and be joyful. Love the music. Hear that big band strike up. It’s all about the gloss and people having a little bit of kind of an excuse to feel their best selves.”
What was your favorite part about the “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” scene in Ted Lasso?
Hannah Waddingham: “I love that song. I was the one that suggested it. So, I was just grateful that Jason Sudeikis was like, ‘Yeah, if you are happy with that one.’
I was like, ‘I just think it’s a great song.’
The thing that wasn’t great that day was it was not warm, and I was a bit like, ‘Oh, we are actually just doing this live? I’m not going to go into a studio afterward and re-record it and make it sound pretty?’
They were like, ‘No. You are all right. You’ve been singing live all your life.’ (Laughing) And I was like, ‘Oh God, why did I tell them that?’”
Rebecca Wilson is the heart of Ted Lasso. What’s your favorite quality of Rebecca’s?
Hannah Waddingham: “The heart of Rebecca is something that I miss on a daily basis. I miss that girl like an old pal that I don’t see anymore. I love the fact that she’s trying. She’s trying. She’s trying all the time. Like, so we don’t know the amount of things that people are trying to get through on a daily basis. And that was what I would always go back to, the root of Rebecca is trying to claw her way back, always. So, I do miss her terribly.”
