FOOTSBARN'S CHRISTMAS CRACKER

at Shakespeare's Globe

23.12.09

It's ten years since I was at the Globe in the depths of winter. That was for the Millennium night, with fireworks and plenty to drink.

This year, for the first time ever, there's a Christmas season in Shakespeare's wooden O. Not a panto, nor yet a full-length piece from the canon. But Footsbarn's unique blend of mayhem and melancholy. A series of moments – Macbeth charades, a mock Nativity scene with a Shakespearean Twelve Days of Christmas, a girl on a tightrope playing a plaintive violin. Not forgetting the excellent mime Nola Rae as the Fool.

Footsbarn are now located in France, and the company is creatively multi-cultural. But I felt that the overall ambience of Patrick Hayter's production was very French, harking back to the work of Le Grand Magic Circus [et ses animaux tristes]. But despite the sadness and the slow moments, the effect was jolly and entertaining, in the tradition of the Mummers and the Lord of Misrule. And the final moments looked forward to the return of the sun and the summer ...

CHRISTMAS CONCERT

The Stondon Singers

22.12.09

In the icy heart of Jericho – the lovely priory church of Saint Lawrence in Blackmore – the Stondon Singers brought us their choral Christmas celebration, sung with their customary style and skill and sensitivity.

Last year we heard the popular Sir Christemas, by Welsh composer William Mathias. This year, the entire carol sequence from which it comes: Ave Rex, its four movements by turns melodious and refreshingly effervescent.

The concert was marked by contrasts. The spiritual contemplation of Arvo Part and Maurice Duruflé, Willcocks' bright setting of Ding Dong Merrily, with the dancing organ played by Stephen King. For his solo, he chose a Canon on the tune Forest Green [O Little Town] by Andrew Carter, whose arrangement of Angelus ad Virginem was part of the closing sequence.

No Christmas is complete without a party piece, and King joined conductor Christopher Tinker in a witty piano duet loosely based on Schubert's Marche Militaire, but with bits of Beethoven and broken Toy Soldiers in there too. The “composer” was John Gardner, whose best known carol, Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, was slotted in between the Carter and the Bleak Midwinter.

There was Byrd, of course, and his Spanish contemporary Victoria, followed by Tinker's delightful lullaby, Hush! My dear, lie still and slumber.

The Singers began and ended behind us in the West End – Palestrina and Stille Nacht, before the mulled wine and the chilly journey home.

A very happy Christmastide to you all.

Here's another helping of Plum Pudding from Gabriel Woolf and the Joyful Company of Singers ...

See you all in 2010 - don't forget that your contributions and your comments are always welcome ...

LES PATINEURS / TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER

Royal Ballet

17.12.09

A rink in a forest glade. Chinese lanterns. Assorted skaters preened, pirouetted and took the occasional tumble on the ice in Frederick Ashton's magical evocation of an Edwardian skating party. The finale saw snow, and left us with a single dancer, the Blue Boy, spinning in the spotlight like a doll in a snow-storm dome.

After the interval, Sir Fred's other Christmas hit, the perennially popular Tales of Beatrix Potter, with Philip Mosley as Mrs Tiggywinkle and Ryoichi Hirano as a lithe Jeremy Fisher.

A tale of two audiences, and little girls out for a Christmas treat. Flashing baubles, plastic trays of greasy chips. Bratz. Lamé boleros [and in one family, three lads in matching knickerbocker outfits] and a surreptitious satsuma. Ballet Shoes. The only point in common between this evening and last the “skating” and the ticket price. We're a long way from the classless society.

GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

Danbury Players

19.12.09

Swarms of bees, gangs of zombie bears – it was no picnic in the woods today.

Danbury Players unusual panto did respect some of the time-honoured traditions: Pauline Chaplin's Tomtom [the Piper's son] was a cross-dressing thigh-slapper, who sang the obligatory love duet with Goldilocks [Megan Cutts]. There was an elimination number, a competitive singalong, and plenty of boos and behind you!s. Annette Michaels had considerable presence as the Dame, with Stuart Charlesworth trying hard as her dim son Ray.

Less predictably, we had a failed philosopher lumberjack [who managed to chop all the irony out of the Python anthem], a “mean and vicious” Queen Bee baddie [nicely done by Jean Speller] and some very snappy dance routines from Bam Bam Boogies.

Tyro directors Trevor Hammond and Debbi Flack included plenty of bear puns, honey humour and lumber jokes. The music, including some cleverly adapted hits, was directed by James Tovey.

After the walk-down and the curtain calls, the whole company joined in “Merry Christmas Everyone” – a sentiment that Jim Hutchon and I would happily echo.

If I might make one or two stage-craft suggestions for next year, it would be to encourage actors to stand still rather than shuffle, to have fewer scene changes, and music to cover them, and to make the dialogue as short as the songs.