Let’s face it…Christmas can be quite a stressful period for adults. Behind all that warm smiles and festive greetings hide the stresses of gift buying, jostling with the crowds (and traffic jams everywhere), occupying the kids (no thanks to school holidays), packing and unpacking (for those lucky ones who go on trips!) and finally to face the reality of paying the Christmas bills and getting the kids ready for another hectic school year. All that while being bombarded by the 10000th variation of Christmas carols everywhere you turn. Thank God for Auld Lang Syne I’d say!

Thank God also for Crazy Christmas – Dream Academy’s latest production in celebration of their 15th Anniversary. It was a dream come true indeed for a splendid night out at the Esplanade Theatre with the Mrs – just the both of us laughing, laughing and laughing…all our Christmas stresses away. So therapeutic!

The 1.5 hour long production goes straight from beginning till end with no intermission (bladder warning!) but honestly, none of us in the audience, unless you urgently need to answer nature’s call, would want the momentum to stop. In fact, once Kumar started off, the first 30 minutes came and went so fast we hardly noticed. Reason is largely due to the hilarious and nostalgic highlights by the Dream Academy team giving us a recap of some of their iconic productions over the last 15 years. All our favourite Dream Academy artistes are featured: Sebastian Tan (Broadway Beng) to Dr Teo Chew Moi (TCM) and certainly the affable Dim Sum Dollies themselves! It’s amazing how they change costumes, rush in and out of stage and yet could muster the crowd’s energy so effectively. No wonder they are called the Dream Team!

Once the laughter got roaring, there was no stopping! The crowd loved Broadway Beng’s rendition of Nutcracker, narrated by him in his signature mix of Hokkien and English. Plus all the acts that take references from currently trending items – from ‘dangerous to sew on MRT trains’ to China Wine, no stones were left un-turned, not even Adele and Star Wars. We haven’t laughed so much in a long while!

Sprinkled between these side-splitting acts were vocal items from the talented local Accapella group, Vocaluptuous that had the audience enthralled with their sleek, perfectly pitched singing and beat boxing.

For us, the real highlight of the performance was at mid way where members of the Nanyang Primary School Choir performed two songs with members of the Henderson Senior Activity Center – one of the beneficiaries of Dream Academy’s charity drive. T’was heartwarming and moving to see younger generations of Singaporeans, guiding these elderly Grandpas and Grandmas in the songs and sharing the stage (at the Esplanade no less) with them – something these Seniors would never have dreamt of.

We were very glad that at least, amidst the REALLY crazy festive season, we were able to make time to live, laugh and love as a couple and be reminded of what Christmas truly means – Love, Family and lots of Good Cheer.

CRAZY CHRISTMAS — A groundNUTCRACKER

Show Dates: 10 to 19 December, 2015
Show Time: 8pm (Tuesday through Saturday), 3pm (Saturday and Sunday) *A special 3pm Matinee show on 19 December!
Show duration: Approx. 90 mins (without an intermission)
Venue: Esplanade Theatre
Ticket priced at $66, $86, $106, $116, are available from SISTIC or its booking hotline (+65 6348 5555).

SPECIAL PROMO CODE!

Enter “CC2015SPECIAL” to enjoy 15% discount off Category 1 and 2 tickets!  Discount code is valid for bookings from 9 November 2015 onwards.