Under a bright, massive cinema screen showing clips from Disney classics, conductor David Mahoney leads the enormous Novello Orchestra in almost complete darkness, cleverly matching the exact tempo of the pre-recorded vocals from the film clips on screen by conducting to blips on a little iPad, and listening to an in-ear metronome. Yes, it’s Disney in Concert: with an invisible orchestra.

On the one hand, emphasising the film clips and hiding the orchestra seems the smart choice for a concert that sets out to celebrate 100 years of the Walt Disney Company (1923–2023), with impressive montage sequences that include original sketches and storyboards, and even some black-and-white footage of Walt himself speaking to us.

On the other hand, prioritising pre-recorded footage over the live orchestra seems misjudged. The show is almost exclusively marketed to 30–40 year olds; and among the sold-out, 2,359-seater Coliseum, you can count the number of children on one hand. Why then can we not just do away with the big screen, the microphones, and the pre-recorded vocals, and put the spotlight on the orchestra instead?

Although you can’t see the orchestra, you can hear them (well, you can in the bits where they’re not drowned out by a loud, amplified, pre-recorded choir). Like the London Musical Theatre Orchestra (LMTO), The Novello Orchestra specialise in the Broadway and Hollywood style, and give us a rousing, supremely confident playing. It’s the sound of magic: but we’re denied the magic of seeing a real orchestra live on stage.

The Novello Orchestra are now touring The Muppet Christmas Carol in Concert across the UK for 2023.