There are already nine major versions of A Christmas Carol on the London stage this winter. Now here’s No10 – guaranteed to be nothing like the rest.
This one comes from the fevered mind of Mr Swallow, the egotistical, peevish, lazy and penny-pinching alter-ego of Nick Mohammed – the comic more latterly known for playing Ted Lasso’s nemesis Nate. And what a befitting story to chose, given that Scrooge, with no concern for anyone but himself, is not far from the character of Mr Swallow.
However, this hapless, feckless impresario has been unable to secure unfettered rights to the Dickens classic, so has had to replace Scrooge with Santa, now portrayed as a sweat shop owner too lazy to read children’s letters and who’s in dire need of some spectral intervention to find redemption.
And this is just the start of many liberties taken with the original, many prompted by Mr Swallow’s compulsion to perpetually disrupt the show with a running commentary on whatever comes into his flibbertigibbet mind. These then feed back into the main story, with the ghostly flashbacks and fast-forwards set in this ‘real’ world.
Oh, and then we have the glitzy lounge singer and Cats under-under-under-understudy Rochelle Kelly (Miranda’s Sarah Hadland, above) who only wants to sing tracks from her new festive album, and gets increasingly deranged about the fact. The real Nativity story is smashed into this somehow too, with Friends star David Schwimmer, Mohammed’s co-star on the Sky sitcom Intelligence, reluctantly providing the voice of God.
It’s a confusing, chaotic sleigh-crash of a narrative, with not a slither of internal logic for the audience to cling to. Scenes are undermined before they get started, and key plot points suddenly introduced out of nowhere. But of course, the cunning artifice is that this debacle is SUPPOSED to be a hopeless mess, so best just load up on Christmas spirit and go with the flow.
While an extra toehold or two onto the rules of clear storytelling would be welcome, the daft shenanigans nevertheless works, thanks to the charm, stupidity and commitment of all involved, plus a generous smattering of good lines (and the occasional corny one so masterfully done as to win you over). For all his self-centred faults, Mr Swallow somehow is as endearing as he is monstrous, thanks to Mohammed’s engaging performance and fine comic timing – and the fact his creation’s insecurities are so apparent.
In his anarchic endeavour he is joined by his usual long-suffering foils: David Elms as Mr Goldsworth, given the impossible task of trying to keep this out-of-control Polar Express on the rails, and Kieran Hodgson – soon to be seen as Prince Andrew in the Channel 4 musical he wrote about the disgraced royal – as the downtrodden Jonathan whose name Mr Swallow can never remember.
While the script may skimp on coherence, there’s an enjoyable sense of scale and ambition to proceedings. After all, it wouldn’t be a Mr Swallow show without an audacious finale, and this one is as strong as ever.
On Fly Davis’s festive set, illuminated candy canes create a heart-shaped proscenium arch while two massive piles of presents flank the stage, one semi-concealing pianist Honor Halford-MacLeod, the other forever teetering on the verge of collapse, should you want am obvious metaphor for the show as a whole.
With toe-tapping original tunes composed by Oliver Birch, including a deliciously bonkers ode to a turkey, this Shambles of a production defies the odds to send the audience out into the Soho streets full of Christmas cheer. For while A Christmas Carol-ish is an utter mess, you’d have to be a real Scrooge not to be charmed by it all.
• A Christmas Carol-ish by Mr Swallow runs at the Soho Theatre, London, until December 23.
