Jamie Cullum brings his own Christmas songbook and his big band back to the Royal Albert Hall, where the show has become an annual fixture of the season.
Jamie Cullum’s Pianoman at Christmas has become an annual fixture at the Royal Albert Hall, and this year’s edition, over two nights in December 2026, brings his big band together with the London group Kansas Smitty’s.
Cullum built the reputation this Christmas show trades on by treating the American songbook as living material rather than heritage. Twentysomething, the record that made his name in 2003, took standards and pop covers at the tempo of a man barely out of his teens; he was twenty-four when it came out, an independent debut nobody had marketed for him. He has stayed that figure since, across eight more albums and a long-running radio show built on introducing listeners to music outside the mainstream.
The Pianoman at Christmas came out in 2020, an album of original Christmas songs written to sound like standards and recorded with a big band. Kansas Smitty’s, the London band joining him here, are the kind of act his radio show has spent fifteen years putting in front of people who would not otherwise find them.
He brings it to the Royal Albert Hall with the big band on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December 2026, with Kansas Smitty’s, who play on the deluxe edition. The songs are his own compositions, among them Beautiful Together, Christmas Don’t Let Me Down and Hang Your Lights.