TV REVIEWS : ‘Broadway Christmas’ Has London Flavor

“A Broadway Christmas” (at 7:30 tonight on Showtime) is not about shopping. This is Broadway as in theatah, except it’s not Broadway theater stars we see singing Yuletide music but casts from London musical companies. Confused? Well, you have a right to be.

The production is innocuous enough if you’re baking cookies at the same time. Aurally, it’s chestnuts and log-burning time, and it’s all musical embers, no talky narration, no dreary exposition. London stage artists appear in costume and on the sets of their shows warbling tunes about Noel. We hear Christmas songs (as opposed to numbers from the shows) from London cast members of “Les Miserables,” “Starlight Express,” “Aspects of Love,” “Cats” and “Miss Saigon.”

If you want to call this “A Broadway Christmas” because three of the shows can indeed be found on Broadway (“Cats,” “Les Miz” and “Aspects of Love”), fine. But the bottom-line seasonal spirit is genuine: Profits and Showtime’s license fee for the right to the telecast (which will be repeated at various times through Christmas Day) were donated to Save the Children, an international charity movement to improve children’s lives.

For theater buffs, the most interesting moment is seeing Jonathan Pryce from the “Miss Saigon” company (crooning “Silent Night”). He was the stormy center of an Actors’ Equity casting brouhaha last summer, and he’s set to open the show on Broadway next March. We also briefly see Filipina Lea Salonga, who created the title role and whom the producers have indicated they may fight to cast with Pryce on Broadway.