A not so silent Nighy

It is a very special kind of carol service where one gets to hear both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown doing the readings... but that's what happens when one asks Rory Bremner along.

The impressionist was among stars including Sienna Miller, Damian Lewis, Bill Nighy and Jemma Redgrave at the carol service at St Luke's, Chelsea, in aid of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy.

Bremner had reworked a version of The Night Before Christmas, and read the following as Tony Blair: "Twas the night before Christmas, and one thing was clear;/That old yuletide spirit was no longer here;/Inflation was rising; the crime rate was tripling;/The fuel bills were up, and our mortgage was crippling."

He then switched to do Gordon Brown posing as a Santa Claus who hands in his resignation: "I've tried," he declared, "to reverse each defeat,/But I fear that today I've become obsolete."

He had a rival in the impressionist stakes, however. Bill Nighy managed a sterling Rasta accent in his rendering of Benjamin Zephaniah's Talking Turkeys. "Be nice to yu turkeys dis Christmas,/Don't eat it, keep it alive. /It could be yu mate an not on your plate/Say, Yo! Turkey I'm on your side."

Others at the service included newsreader Kirsty Young, pop opera quartet Il Divo and the Sugababes. Sienna Miller read The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. "It's a wonderful charity," she said as the performers tucked into mince pies and mulled wine outside the church afterwards. "I read for them last year as well and this carol service is my favourite of all of them because it's so Christmassy and informal and so much fun."