REVIEW - A CHRISTMAS CAROL-ISH

Mr. Swallow and co. are back at The Soho with a bold, ridiculous and outrageously clever take on everyone’s (least) favourite Christmas classic!

It’s a version of A Christmas Carol in which Scrooge is played as Santa, Santa’s shirking his duties for the rest of the year, and the cast and creatives repeatedly break character to try to figure out what on Earth’s actually going on. What results is a hilariously self-aware take-down of the idea of the play which allows us to say what we’ve all been thinking since sitting through our first politely faithful production: It’s quite a boring story. Add to this the woefully over-trodden tale of Jesus in the barn and the maddening cliché of ‘We’ve got to get the presents out on time!’ and you could end up with a recipe for total tedium. However, it turns out that, just as if you mix all the colours together you make a sort-of muddy purple, if you mix all the browns and beiges together, then chuck the paints at a wall, knock the wall down and open up an outdoor roller-disco trampoline centre instead, Christmas can still be fun, fresh and overwhelmingly funny!

This is a hard show to review as it’s such a tour-de-force of metatheatrical silliness, gleefully imaginative songs and non-stop witty wordplay — one that for all its layered deconstruction of Dickens’ original still manages to maintain its heart and magic. It constantly surprises by tearing up the rules of the game and making them the butt of the joke. As Mr. Swallow rightly points out of Scrooge: ‘Michael Cain did it with a pig and a frog’ — surely after this no one would try to take the role seriously? Well, after this show, the idea seems positively ludicrous! Aren’t we all a bit too smart for that? A little too full of life and joy and beans and wisecracks and all the other things that make spending time with our nearest and dearest such a joy? Or maybe it’s rejecting the idea that any form of reverence or conventional treatment of tradition is totally unnecessary. We can keep all the old stories, but make them our own: Mary’s in labour with a very stressy nurse who doesn’t want to ‘put too much pressure on, but this means a lot to a lot of people’; Rudolph is the last living soul of a dying population of reindeer who’ve been worked in the cold to the bone; Jacob Marley is simply an elf: Elf Marley.

Beneath all these characters is another layer of comedy: the characters who play them. Scrooge is played by Mr. Swallow (Nick Mohammed), the forgetful, chatty and deeply annoying star who winds everyone up and makes every professional blunder under the sun; Rudolph is Jonathan (Keiran Hodgson), a simpering actor who considers himself above all this nonsense and desperately asks for more lines in every scene, only to be told: ‘Sorry but this isn’t [technically] a scene’; Mr. Goldsmith (David Helms) is Mr. Swallow’s producer and partner (‘all the P’s: paranoid schizophrenic’), who plays the belaboured job of embodying all the ghosts (who are all dressed in the same tacky ghost outfit) and pushing the plot along with classically wry delight. And then there is Rochelle: Sarah Hadland. Where do I even begin? She’s sensational; it’s camp; it’s bizarre — one of the most ridiculously absurd comedy character concepts I’ve ever seen with something of a Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock but with a wonderfully determined emphasis on Cats. She’s a musical theatre star who’s on retainer for Andrew Lloyd Webber, stepping in to play any part in any play where the long line of understudies have all fallen sick to some such nightmare as toxoplasmosis. She’s also desperate to plug her Christmas album, which includes misspelt titles as ‘Satan Baby’. Her song: ‘I Love My Turkey’ sees her gobbling on the stage — it’s insane and the comedy is perfectly pitched. I’m in awe of her talent and baulked like a farmyard bird.

In all, I was overwhelmed by the level of lyrical dexterity, mind-blowing structure and sheer abundance of play at work. It didn’t let up, not for a single second. The script is bonkers but so tight, and moves with such pace and verve under Matt Peover’s uncompromising direction. To achieve this level of self-awareness and ‘shoddiness’ requires so much craft, and every component is tight as a screw. I want the Christmas album immediately!

It’s another hit for a stellar team, and I think everyone should go. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the best Christmas show I have ever seen! Nick Mohammed is an absolute wonder, and hurrah for Christmas-ish.

{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}

A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE
by Ellie Preston
Spine-tingling yet heart-warming, Mark Gatiss’s retelling of A Christmas Carol truly encapsulates the haunting atmosphere of a Victorian ghost story, balanced out with enough humour so as to capture the festive season. Led by Keith Allen as Scrooge, with Peter Forbes as Marley, this show is perfect for Christmas viewing. The set design by Paul Wills is instantly captivating, containing stacks of metal cabinets towering over the theatre, moveable by the cast to allow space for other central props like doors, beds and tables. In addition to this, the puppetry design by Matthew Forbes is incredibly clever, adding creepy elements to the show such … More A CHRISTMAS CAROL – REVIEW – ALEXANDRA PALACE
A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503
by Tom Carrao
The title of this winner of Theatre 503’s 2023 International Playwriting Award by Roxy Cook may seem like the set-up to a joke, but the narrative that unspools is instead an affectionate, gently barbed and at base quite sobering portrait of three ordinary souls (and one restless feline) adrift in modern Moscow. There is much affable, satirical back-and-forth commentary on the accepted myths & stereotypes of the Russian spirit & soul. Beset by the indignities of age, opportunism, graft, fatigue, the characters orbit one another, doomed to play out their roles in an unjust, predatory and saturnine universe. The play opens … More A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK – REVIEW – THEATRE503
PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE
by Amy Rye
Peter Pan Goes Wrong first premiered in London at the Pleasance Theatre in 2013, and earlier this year the show made its Broadway debut. Now the production is back in the West End for the Christmas season. Following on from The Play That Goes Wrong, in this production, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is staged by the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and goes awry, disastrously so. The meta-comedy is filled with slapstick comedy, sometimes the humour may be predictable and silly, but it’s universally funny throughout – there is something for everyone here, and the laughs come thick and fast … More PETER PAN GOES WRONG – REVIEW – LYRIC THEATRE
GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE
by George Rennie
Drawing heavily from the classic canon of the British supernatural, High Tide’s trio of contemporary Gothic narratives uses traditional storytelling formats to address contemporary themes. Directed by Elayce Ismail, reverent musical interludes accompany tales of apparitions and nighttime conjurings that speak of women from the East of England. Unfortunately, the effect is less chilling and more lightweight, with conventional structures, predictable plot twists and an over-reliance on external forces to drive narrative shoring up some of the less relatable aspects of the genre. Nicola Werenowska’s The Beach House, perhaps the cleanest of the three tales, tells of a mother and … More GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT – REVIEW – SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE
CINDERELLA – REVIEW – LYRIC HAMMERSMITH
by Jenny Skuse
Drum roll please…(Cue a literal drum rolling across the stage.) The Lyric pantomime is one of traditions with the return of many well-loved jokes and skits. Costumes and sets are all made at the Lyric itself by Good Teeth, with set pieces being reused year on year. This year Cinderella gets the Hammersmith makeover, with some success. The costuming is fun and vibrant, with the ugly stepsisters’ equine pyjamas and hoop-skirted ball gowns giving all the wrong kinds of extra you need for those characters. Cinderella’s on stage dress transformation is magical and really well-timed. The Dame, Lady Jelly-Bottom’s, outfits … More CINDERELLA – REVIEW – LYRIC HAMMERSMITH