BBC Radio 2’s “The Music of Disney” – A Review

A special review from Carl Bayliss – England.

In the midst of the very frosty British winter, so many miles from the sunshine of Florida, what do two London-based Disney fanatics do to escape the cold and ward off the “when are we going back to WDW” blues? Well, there are photos, of course, and even some souvenirs from our previous trips, but sometimes those don’t quite cut it, do they? So, if we can’t get ourselves to WDW, then a little bit of that magic will just have to come to London.

On this occasion, the magic took the form of a performance of some classic and very favourite Disney tunes performed by a wonderful 70-piece orchestra and an amazing array of talented singers in one of London’s finest theatres.

A few weeks ago, and a few months since we returned from our last trip to the World, an email pops up in my inbox from my DW (Lynn), informing me that tickets had just gone on sale to BBC Radio 2’s “The Music of Disney” concert. “Look at this, can we go please?” was her plea and, well, I don’t need much persuading so…

…on Monday December 8th we made our way to the Lyceum Theatre (the current home of Disney’s “The Lion King” in London’s West End), for an evening celebrating over 65 years of Disney music from stage and screen. Hosted by international recording artist, Josh Groban, the concert featured a galaxy of Broadway and West End stars and the BBC Concert Orchestra.

The concert opened with an overture of Disney favourites. From the very first notes of “When You Wish Upon a Star” and for the next two and a half hours we could forget the freezing weather outside and let the music of Disney whisk us away to another place.

After the overture, Josh introduced the resident Company of “The Lion King” – if the opening bars of “The Circle of Life”, performed live with a full orchestra and two percussionists up high in the theatre’s boxes doesn’t get the hairs on the back of your next rising, then nothing will.

From then on there was delight after delight, including all-time favourites from The Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Aladdin, Cinderella, Snow White, Tarzan, Sleeping Beauty, Enchanted and High School Musical. Our personal favourites included a moving performance of “When She Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 and a medley of songs from Mary Poppins, which had the whole theatre out of their seats singing and clapping along to “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, “Step In Time” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”!

However, the highlight of the evening, and a real treat, was kept for the finale when our wonderful host performed “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio. The score for this has only recently been discovered in the Disney archives, indeed, this was the first time that the original arrangement had been performed in full outside of the recording for the film back in 1939.

In all, a truly amazing evening, and if you find yourself in need of a little Disney Magic over the holidays, and have access to international radio stations, then the BBC will be broadcasting the event on December 26th on BBC Radio 2 at 7:30pm BST or 2:30pm EST
Happy Holidays!

Carl Bayliss lives in London, England. Both him and his wife, Lynn, are huge fans of all things Disney and have been lucky enough to visit WDW, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland together over the past 6 years. Their last trip to the World was in August 2008.