ALEXANDER Armstrong may be widely known as a TV comedian, but he also happens to be a classically trained baritone.

He'll be flexing those vocal chords of his on a major UK tour - An evening of live music with Alexander Armstrong in Concert - which will follow the release of his first Christmas album In A Winter Light, out on November 24.

It is his third album release after two previous Top 10 albums – A Year of Songs (2015) and Upon A Different Shore' (2016).

Alexander said: "I've always wanted to do an album of Christmas music because it's such a madly evocative repertoire. No other season has such a mass of varied and beautiful pieces written in celebration of it. Music is right at the heart of any Christmas.

"Christmas without music would be unthinkable. I mean I daresay you could still find some joy in an old mince pie or something, but just imagine no carols, no Bing, no boys of the NYPD choir, no For Unto Us A Child Is Born? Now that really would be bleak midwinter.

"The truth is we haven't got time to hang about in December so we use our favourite music each year to take us straight to where we want to be: maybe it's to savour the more mystical side of Christmas as an ancient religious festival or maybe it's to celebrate an uproarious winter knees-up with those we love. Or - ideally - a bit of both…"

Having spent years performing in choirs, Armstrong's musical heritage is on full display on In A Winter Light. Recorded with the City of Prague Orchestra, abetted by the Choir of New College, Oxford, the RAF Squadronaires big band and Jools Holland, it's the rich, enveloping sound of a gifted baritone pursuing the range of his seasonal and musical passions.

The songs were scored and arranged by the husband and wife team of James and Juliette Morgan Pochin. James was Armstrong's organ scholar at Trinity College Cambridge, while Juliette was an alto in the choir at the same time.

Armstrong's seasonal playlist takes us carefully around his many loves. The song selection ranges from neo-folkies Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal to revered early 20th century church composer Herbert Howells' A Spotless Rose.

We move rom the wintry paganism of the Middle Ages (There Is No Rose) to the cocktail cheer of the Fifties (Winter Wonderland). Nina Simone (Little Girl Blue) clinks a glass with Bing Crosby (Let It Snow). And, finally, you can barely hear the distance between a brace of 19th century hymnal wonders (O Holy Night, Bethlehem Down, Silent Night) and a pair of fresh-off-the page compositions written by Armstrong himself.

Of his two self-penned contributions, Armstrong acknowledges that I Still Believe in Christmas is "pure Bing".

"This is the complete Christmas," Alexander says of the album. "I've drawn together every single style of seasonal music that I love, so you've got the full English here all in one place: mysterious medieval through to lavish Victorian Christmas, sacred through to profane, carols through to cocktails."

The show will come to the Cliffs Pavilion, Station Road, Southend, on May 30.

Tickets are now on sale via southendtheatres.org.uk