★★★★☆ New Old Friends has teamed up with the Lichfield Garrick theatre to present a very adult take on the 12 Days of Christmas. A cast of just four peopled the Ustinov stage with 13 characters, circling each other with festive paranoia as the bumping off began, Agatha Christie style, one by one . . . Great fun.
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Jon Monie and Nick Wilton are entertaining us at the Theatre Royal Bath – so it must be Christmas! Mr Monie has become the consummate panto comic lead. His is the kind of performance that allows you to sink comfortably into your seat knowing you are in good hands . . . a colourful family show firmly anchored in a warm-hearted festive tradition with a simple story and entertaining performances all round.
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Bravely, as it must have been in 1955, the play unravels some of the prejudices and preconceptions that bedevilled race relations in 50s America. Like many a notable work it plays out society’s tensions in the (unfulfilled) life of an individual. Yet this is no blunt instrument to bash society’s sensibilities. The play works as a piece of theatre and not mere polemic by observing and playing on a web of sensitivities
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A merry mash-up of spoof gothic horror, cheesy sci-fi and singalong rock, it’s as well-known as a Dad’s Army repeat. There was a time when its celebratory take on gender-bending was ground-breaking, but transvestism is now so mainstream that very little in the show will come as either a shock or a surprise. But that does not mean that is has become stale.
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As we awake to a new American president we can take a crumb of comfort by reflecting that however bad things may seem at the present it was by any measure worse at some stage in the past (take your pick). Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories series of books and subsequent stage productions take as their starting point the fact that things were, once upon a real time, pretty grim for all concerned.
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