On home turf
Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham went global at Eurovision – now she’s back on the West End stage for Christmas
‘Mum was an opera singer. That’s where it comes from’
When hannah waddingham appears in front of me, it feels like Christmas has come early. Glowing like an old-school film legend, the musical theatre star turned Ted Lasso scene-stealer and Olivier Awards and Eurovision host has had quite the year, a feat she’s now topped with her own Christmas extravaganza.
Ted Lasso went out on a high this May, but Waddingham, who won an Emmy in 2021 for her performance as football club boss Rebecca Welton, says, “I don’t think I’ll ever say goodbye to her. It’s the first time I’ve ever been afforded the luxury of being really collaborative about a character.” She pauses. “Unless I play her again, she doesn’t exist any more and it’s like losing a pal.”
Fortunately, Waddingham had a distraction, co-hosting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest from Liverpool, where she dazzled a global audience of more than 160 million. “I’ve always loved it, I feed off a live audience, and the energy in that room was just electric,” she says. Would she do it again? With knobs on. “I’d be the new Katie Boyle, given half a chance!”
Her festive extravaganza is certainly a step in that direction, a feast of traditional entertainment where she sings, jokes and beams charisma from the stage of the London Coliseum, supported by a live orchestra, the English National Opera choir and some familiar faces.
The title of the show, Home for Christmas , has layers of meaning for Waddingham, who made her West End debut in 2000 and has worked in musical theatre ever since. “The show has a bit of everything,” she explains. “We talked about it being called Home for the Holidays for a global audience, but I said, ‘No. I’m English, we don’t say holidays, we say Christmas.’ And I’m coming home to theatre, to my family, to my most beloved career. As much as I love where my work has gone, I will always go back.” One moment in the show stands out, where she looks both emotional but very proud, pointing out her parents and her daughter Kitty in the audience. “I had to steel myself for a second,” she says. “The Coliseum is hugely important to me. I wanted to thank my mum for bringing me into that place, to my father for supporting us, to show my daughter that when I’m away working, it’s for a good reason. “It’s not been an easy time for my family. Me being away from my daughter, and my mother is heavily afflicted with Parkinson’s. But she was there in her wheelchair, and the ENO all went round to say hello to her afterwards. She made me laugh when I mentioned her. She waved at me and then at the audience. A performer never switches it off!”
Waddingham credits her mother for her own work ethic, and more. “She was a principal at Covent Garden before I was born, something she gave up to raise her children. Then, she went back to the chorus at the ENO: three sessions a day, travelling to the Coliseum, coming home to make my dad’s dinner then going back to sing La Traviata at night. Rinse, repeat. That’s where it comes from.” Family will be the focus of this year’s Christmas. “Last year, I was filming in Sydney, my daughter had to fly out, I wasn’t with my parents. This year, I just want to hunker down and watch the King’s speech, a film afterwards and hopefully be asleep by 4pm.”