Sit back, buckle up and keep your knuckles out of sight—this is fast-paced, stunning and likely to make your Christmas Cheer get tickled and fizzed with all the good feeling of a panto that knows how to get you onside.
There are all the elements you expect, apart from a wee bit of a singsong at the end: you get to shout out at the stage, sweeties get thrown back at you, a wean gets asked up onstage, celebrations get announced from the stage and there is enough fromage to make the cheeseboard the less appealing item in any Christmas dinner…
But this has two things, that others just do not.
The script and Lousie McCarthy.
Scriptwriter Johnny McKnight has become a pretty big thing. Now in the top 100 most influential list from The List, he is a powerhouse. Up till this point, I was liking his serious output more than the funny, panto-style work. But this script has energy, pathos, quick wit and cracking original jokes which has seen it updated since its debut a decade ago. We do go a wee bit meta with some of the theatre references, but never was Perth so maligned with Dignitas—or was that dignity?
But this takes A Christmas Carol as we know it and twists it. Scrooge is a miser in terms of her outlook, condemning those less fortunate to lives of misery and squalor, whilst she is living the high life. Cratchit, appalled that she has to work Christmas Day, is looking after a poorly and on his way to death Tiny Tim, but refuses to hear ill spoken of her employer. The ghosts, now panto past, present and future, come thick and fast as we enjoy the ghost of Panto Past—Jimmy Krankie—long before Morecambe and Wise were used in a TV update—Panto Present is a Dandy Don Barbie, whilst Panto Future is a robot with sterile humour, thanks to future culture updates.
But giving people a platform only goes so far. Someone up there needs to deliver the script. Enter stage left and right, McCarthy. She fills the entire production. It is not just her presence, her lithe ability to end a musical number in the splits or the faces that are pulled in defiance of gravity, she can pitch her lines with razor-sharp precision; I am quite sure, after this, her tongue could do a shift at the Queen Elizabeth in surgery, her tongue is that sharp.
To be fair, the rest of the cast are ably in support. Kyle Gardiner does manage a wonderful Tiny Tim, Jamie Marie Leary chants away as a great Gloria, Star Penders proves to be more than a spare and Julie Wilson Nimmo delights in all that she does. And, whilst hats off to Katie Barnett and the future Barnett currently six months into their own residency in her tummy, being onstage and six-months pregnant is a plus point but it underlines to me of the lack of diversity across the board elsewhere in panto land.
Musically, some numbers stand out, a few need time to bed in, which is much the same with the singing. It does vary, but where it hits, it really hits home, and the theme of change is a coming is a suitable anthemic piece of foreground that works well.
Technically, this has a great set which understands its role whilst delivering a Victorian backdrop with a technically challenging script. It also rises to the challenge well.
Dickens and the Tron has been a bit of a theme this year, what with Nae Expectations and now Christmas Carol with a gallus makeover. I think what I like most is that, if you pardon the pun, the spirit of the piece is retained whilst the structure—four ghosts and a revelation—is held to. Scrooge is less of a miser and spendthrift and more of a matriarchal nightmare. It’s an enthusiastic delight which sparkles brighter than the shiny baubles on the tree, but also does that peculiarly Scottish thing of swiping hard at the politics and social standing to deliver a commentary with a heart.
It is unashamedly panto with no Twist but plenty of Caroling and carousing—Christmas on a stage. Full Stop.