The Horne Section. A Christmas show. You can see the logic. They’re a jolly bunch, Alex Horne is forever pulling goodies out of his metaphorical sack on family TV favourite Taskmaster – and they released a Christmas album three festive seasons ago. A smattering of its tracks are revived here, in what is otherwise not an especially tinselly confection – and may indeed be more of a preview of what the musical comedy six-piece plans when it takes to the road proper from March this coming year.
The festive content comprises some punning carols, which hit their punchline then stop, a version of Little Donkey that’s hostile to the titular pack animal – and two original Christmas singles. The latter are diverting enough, but Horne’s limitations as a singer, which he is the first to admit, make them a harder sell than the wham-bam musical jokes elsewhere. Of those there are a few peachy examples tonight, like the one that turns on a 30-year-old advertising slogan for domestic bleach.
Then there are the songs sung by the band themselves, while Horne blends as innocuously as he can into the foreground. Their close-harmony carol Manger Danger, which imagines a slightly more alarming Christian nativity, closes Act One on a high. The later Grandaddy, led by banjo-strumming Joe Auckland, delivers some superior – and characteristically juvenile – pea-based wordplay. There are moments elsewhere, mind you, when puerile overpowers witty in the mix, or, as with a conflict resolution set-piece, when the payoff isn’t quite worth the dotty activity required to get there.
It’s always endearing, though. Horne brings bumbling charm to spare, and the band have an easy camaraderie, chopping and changing roles, following this or that incongruous impulse, as when Horne invites his bandmate – and Robbie Williams’ touring saxophonist – Mark Brown to reprise a hit Williams single, sax part only. Elsewhere, there’s an audience participation Zumba workout and a Taskmaster stunt involving leaf-blowers that stubbornly refuse to work. “A lot happened there,” says our self-effacing host, “and not all of it Grade A entertainment.” Perhaps not – but it’s good, and occasionally festive, fun nonetheless.
