Living Advent Calendar night 19: Daisy Smith

Tuesday’s Living Advent Calendar performance took place in an actual advent window.

Singer Daisy Smith performed through the illuminated top window of Simmons & Sons’ offices, which are reminiscent of an old fashioned advent calendar.

The evening was hosted and sponsored by the estate agents, which provided mulled wine and mince pies and held in its secret garden in Bell Street.

The night was fundraising for Riverside Counselling Service, which provides counselling to adults and young people.

Alongside the raffle was an auction donated by Hobbs of Henley, which offered a 12-person self-drive Olympic class motor launch for a full day’s hire from April to October excluding Henley Royal Regatta, Henley Music Festival, bank holidays and weekends. Mr Rodway added: “Apart from that, whenever you want”, prompting laughs from the audience.

Ms Smith began with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, while the lights behind her changed colour. She said: “I was very excited when Richard asked me to do this – I said: ‘Can I have the window one?’ I didn’t realise it was quite this high, to be fair. I'm going to have to grow my hair in future and then I can lower it down”.

The next song she sang was Defying Gravity from Wicked the Musical. She said: “Apparently the insurance wouldn’t cover abseiling either, so I thought: ‘What could I sing from incredibly high off the ground?’

“There’s one song that is my friend’s favourite song and I thought this was perfect to sing.”

She then sang Truly Scrumptious, from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, in which she will perform in Wallingford. She hoped to be helped by her son, Joe, but said: “I have a comedy sidekick and this would be his first singing performance I’m not sure he will come to the window, so it may just be me, but there may be a small human coming to join me.

“He sings it beautifully in the car but it’s quite scary with you lot. And I think he is scared of heights, so this may not be ideal.”

To finish, Ms Smith said: “I used to work as a Disney Princess but I had to retire because I was getting too old and I didn’t want someone to ask me: ‘Are you Elsa’s mum?’ when I turned up. But I do like to make it snow and I will see if I still have some Disney magic”.

She sang Let it Snow, while her son controlled the fake snow machine that blasted snowflakes from the window. “Don’t let an eight-year-old control a machine” she warned the audience.

To conclude the performance, Ms Smith sang Santa Claus is Coming to Town.