• Home
  • Reid Robin's Christmas Bosies
Aberdeen Performing Arts presents

Reid Robin’s Christmas Bosies!

A digital performance advent calendar that ran daily from Sunday 13 to Thursday 24 December 2020 (via Aberdeen Performing Arts on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram). All videos are still available to watch if you would like to continue to spread the festive cheer into January!

Fit like?! Fit like?! It’s me, Reid Robin. Aywiz cheery, aywiz bobbin’!

Join the Lemon Tree’s resident birdie Reid Robin and friends for a digital selection box of fabulous performance treats this Christmas courtesy of Aberdeen Performing Arts. Each day from 13 to 24 December, Reid Robin will send a new video to our social media channels featuring a wonderful lineup of musicians, storytellers, dancers, poets, actors, and more, all bringing the magic of Christmas to life.

Reid Robin will be brought to life by the fantastic animators at Aberdeen creative agency Design and Code, animator Zoe Buyers and the North-east’s own Christmas star, writer and actress Joyce Falconer.

Panto favourites Alan McHugh and Elaine C Smith will both appear, alongside music from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, classical musicians Elena Urioste and Tom Poster, percussionist Owen Gunnell, and clarsach player Siannie Moodie. There will be delightful festive stories and poems from Aberdeen actress Danielle Jam, Mara the Storyteller, and Doric poet Jo Gilbert, and festive capers from the Polar Bears (Ivor McAskill and Fiona Manson), Shaper Caper Dance Company, Ten Feet Tall Theatre and Frozen Charlotte.

The videos will be released on the Aberdeen Performing Arts social media channels each day at 7.30am, just click on the logos below to view the pages. All videos will be free to watch from Sunday 13 to Thursday 24 December 2020 and will all remain available to watch until Sunday 3 January 2021.


       

Competition details

Reid Robin would love you to join in! Each day, as part of the videos in Reid Robin’s Christmas Bosies, you’ll be asked to make or draw a decoration for Reid Robin’s nest! Make sure to tune in each day to discover each new decoration. Send us photographs of your decorations before the end of the school holidays for your chance to win a fantastic prize which will include a family ticket for next year’s pantomime at HMT, Beauty and the Beast, a backstage tour, a chance to meet the cast, and a special Reid Robin goodie bag! Post your photos on social media with the #reidrobincomp or send to [email protected]. Good luck!



Meet the wonderful cast of Reid Robin's Christmas Bosies!

​

 Joyce Falconer

Joyce is a Torry quine, who has been a familiar face and voice on Scottish stage and screen since graduating from RSAMD in 1991. Joyce has written and performed her own material at countless Burns’ nights home and abroad and has fair enjoyed helping to create Reid Robin to bring to you this Christmas.
 

Alan McHugh

Alan is delighted to be able to play a part in creating this online advent calendar in his role as panto dame, having played Dame in every HMT panto since 2004. In addition to this role, he is also the panto’s writer and director, and this would have been his seventeenth year in the role. He now can’t wait to don his comedy bra and lumpy legs to return in the role of Mrs Potty in Beauty And The Beast in 2021. 

 Elaine C Smith

Elaine C Smith is a firm favourite at HMT, having performed for many years in panto and several other productions including sold out performances of her own stand up show. A well known figure across Scotland, Elaine has appeared in City Lights, Rab C Nesbitt and Two Doors Down, for which she won a BAFTA Scotland award.

 Ten Feet Tall Theatre and Frozen Charlotte: Wee Tales

Join Santa’s Elves DEE and DON whilst they work hard in the North Pole getting ALL the presents ready for Santa’s Sleigh. DEE and DON are two of Santa’s best helpers and they are on a mission to dish out as much Christmas cheer as possible, including sharing their favourite storybook - which is bound to put smiles on faces.

This special performance is an extract from the live online, interactive show WEE TALES that is being performed in video calls to Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Schools this December.  For children ages 4 -7. Produced by Frozen Charlotte and Ten Feet Tall.

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra are a firm favourite at the Music Hall and have delighted North-east audiences for many years. Formed in 1935, and based at Glasgow’s City Halls since 2006, the BBC SSO is Scotland’s national broadcasting orchestra and performs throughout Scotland, the UK and abroad.

Danielle Jam

Danielle Jam trained at Queen Margaret and Napier Universities. Theatre Credits include: thick skin, elastic heart (Sonnet Youth) Them! (National Theatre of Scotland) Rep Stripped (Dundee Rep) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ten Feet Tall Theatre), The Snow Queen (Dundee Rep Theatre). It Wisnae Me (Òran Mór) TV credits include: Molly and Mack (CBeebies). DASH (Blazing Griffin).
Elena Urioste and Tom Poster

Elena Urioste is a musician, yogi, writer, and entrepreneur. As a violinist, Elena has given acclaimed performances as soloist with major orchestras throughout the world, including the New York Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Halle Orchestra.

Tom Poster is a musician whose skills and passions extend well beyond the conventional role of the concert pianist. He has been described as “a marvel, who can play anything in any style” (The Herald) and as having “a beautiful tone that you can sink into like a pile of cushions” (BBC Music).
Siannie Moodie

Hailing from Ross Shire in the Highlands, Siannie Moodie is an expressive and accomplished clarsach player. She is deeply rooted in the Scottish folk and Gaelic music from this region, and learned from some of the countries greatest tradition bearers including Alison Kinnaird and Bill Taylor.
Jo Gilbert

Jo Gilbert is a writer and spoken word artist from Aberdeen. Jo’s work is influenced by the language and culture of the North East with a contemporary twist. A multiple slam poetry winner, Jo has had work commissioned for festivals, art installations and film.
Polar Bears

These two lovable Polar Bears are intrepid explorers, famous for their wild expeditions and charming and entertaining young children and their adults around the world. Silent wanderers led by their sense of curiosity… and their stomachs. Catch their latest adventure, The Polar Bears Go, Go, Go! when it tours Scotland in Summer 2021.
Shaper/Caper: The Snow Qween

Shaper/Caper is a dance-theatre charity based in Dundee that tours compelling productions to theatres and venues in Scotland, the UK, and internationally (New York City, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Dusseldorf, and Knokke-Belgium). Join us in this adventure and help the Snow Qween, Colonel Caper, and friends to solve the mystery in time for the Christmas celebration.
Mara The Storyteller

Mara Menzies is one of Scotland's leading performance storytellers, drawing on her rich, dual Kenyan/Scottish cultural heritage, to create worlds that explore contemporary issues through legend, myth and fantasy. She fuses ancient and modern in an intoxicating experience where the audience takes centre stage and is delighted to be able to share this beautiful story with you all this Christmas.
Owen Gunnell

Owen Gunnell has presented concerts for Children’s Classic Concerts since 2007 and been Artistic Director from 2008 onwards.  He has become a much-loved part of the organisation, with audiences adoring his cheeky chappy persona, his virtuosic percussion performances and his enthusiastic presentation style.  His fun-loving nature breaks down the divide between audience and orchestra and he is sure to get everyone involved in concerts whether it be a 3-year-old or an 80-year-old.