9th November A Christmas Carol not quite a Christmas cracker


 This was very much a last minute purchase following very good reviews in the associated press. So last minute in fact that I wasn't able to find two spaces in the cheap seats on a night that both TOM and I could go. So it was a solo venture to the Playhouse to watch the Mark Gatiss written version of A Christmas Carol, my first non Covid restricted theatre jolly in over two years. 

I like the Playhouse in the fact that you seem to get a good view from wherever you are sat. In fact I can never quite work out why the person sat night to me might actually have paid £X more just to sit a single space further towards the centre. Both TOM and I enjoyed seeing Mark Gatiss here in The Madness of King George especially as the ticket for the live show was less than a ticket to watch a screened performance in the cinema some months later. Something Ebeneezer Scrooge himeslf would no doubt have enjoyed, the cheap ticket that is not a play about a mad king!

Anyway let's not lose the plot. The show itself was good but as I alluded to earlier not quite the Christmas cracker the reviews had led me to believe. The staging was clever, there were some good special effects thrown in, including puppetry and ghostly apperitions but its hard to introduce new twists in a plot that is so familiar to many. There were too many scenes that seemed rather slow, ponderous and either too drawn out or alternatively felt a little too rushed.

As for Gatiss, well apart from a cameo as both the live and dead Jacob Marley, he was very much just part of the ensemble. It was nice to get out and back to live theatre again and I suspect the rousing at the applause at the end was as much for that as it was for the actual play itself. Definitely not a Christmas turkey but perhaps something whose glittery wrapping promised more that it finally delivered.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th May Olbia

Image
  A chance to stretch our legs today with our first port of call; Olbia, Sardinia. And it was a quick stretch too due to it being only a five hour stay. Up bright and early, so early in fact that the hot food at the buffet wasn't even ready to be served. Still it gave us a chance to watch the ship glide into port past a host of oyster/mussel beds, before performing a 180 degree turn to reverse into it's berth. A couple of short bus rides later and we were in downtown Olbia. But there an hour or so before anything appeared to open, the disadvantage of being early birds and something we don't seem to learn! Not that Olbia had a great deal to see or maybe if we had done the slightest bit of planning beforehand there might have benn but we didn't. It was pleasant enough but that's about it. It was pleasant enough but nothing special, indeed we were back on the ship after just a couple of hours ashore and then managed to sleep away most of th...
Read more

7th May Naples

Image
 I'm sure I've heard the phrase 'see Naples and die' suggesting that it is perhaps not the nicest location in the Mediterranean but if it's good enough for Diego Maradona fir a few years then it's good enough for me for 10 hours. Although the millions of tax free pounds he was paid might have eased his stay. By the time we got up, washed, dressed and up to The Kitchens, the rest of the ship were already there. Compared to the Marie Celeste of yesterday it was absolutely packed, presumably with people having breakfast before heading out on 8am excursions, our excursion was simply going to be the city of Naples itself as possible trips to Vesuvius, Pompei or the Amalfi coast would have been too much / tired.  So on a day when the weather initially seemed uncertain, we jumped aboard route A for the Hop on Hop off bus and headed out into the mayhem that is the Napoli traffic where it was every van, car and scooter for the selves. I think it's bes...
Read more