Theatre reviews

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Neil Cooper

There are few better symbols of the early twenty-first century's ongoing era of recession and austerity culture than Charles Dickens'19th-century meanie, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Neil Duffield's stage adaptation of Dickens' novel is brought to life in Andrew Panton's production in a way that emphasises the error of Scrooge's greedy ways without ever losing sight of the story's power as family entertainment.

With the narrative spread out between an eight-strong ensemble cast, who play assorted musical instruments to accompany their singing of traditional carols, Scrooge's Christmas Eve epiphany is conveyed in an impressionistic fashion by a magnificently pop-eyed Christopher Fairbank.

As he humbugs his way through the streets, Fairbank's Scrooge resembles the sort of mean-spirited and compassion-free politician who believe poor people are penniless by choice, and that beggars are little more than scroungers on the make.

It takes the ghosts of past, present and future to remind Scrooge of where his pain comes from and where it will lead if he doesn't let love in.

For these scenes, Fairbank is wheeled around Alex Lowde's expansive set on his four-poster bed as he observes his younger self as well as the greater gifts bestowed on his much put-upon clerk BobCratchit and his young family, and his nephew Fred.

It is here that Fairbank's portrayal of Scrooge goes beyond the merely grotesque to reveal the full pathos of a man who has shut out happiness from his life with no more than a sad-eyed look.

While Anthony Bowers' Ghost of Christmas Past could have stepped out of a Mighty Boosh sketch, Lewis Howden's Ghost of Christmas Present is a more genial, Santa Claus-like incarnation.

It is the Ghost of Christmas Future, however, a damningly silent projection of a little girl's face, that really brings home the horrors of poverty.

If such an image sounds dark, it's never overplayed, and when Scrooge opens his heart to the world at last, it ushers in a musical finale that's worthy of an old-time variety show, and resembles a Christmas card brought joyously to life.

The BFG

Dundee Rep

Neil Cooper

A BIRTHDAY party to beat them all is the result when a children's entertainer fails to turn up in David Wood's stage adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic story about a little girl called Sophie's unlikely friendship with the Big Friendly Giant, who whisks her away from the orphanage she lives in. By framing the story with another girl called Sophie's party, as she and her pals hit the dressing up box to tell Dahl's story, it takes an imaginative leap into a world of creative play which the young audience can draw inspiration from in Joe Douglas' bright and bold production. The appearance of Sophie and The BFG in both human and puppet form lends proceedings an even more fantastical essence.

Ali Craig's BFG is a wide-eyed vegetarian hippy type who collects dreams before planting them in the minds of sleeping children. Isolatedfrom his flesh-eating contemporaries for simply being too nice, and with a unique line in word-inventing patter, The BFG wiles away his days munching on gut-wrenching oversize vegetables and necking flatulence-inducing fizzy drinks. Both help save the day when the other giants attempt to munch their way around the globe.

As played out on Jean Chan's topsy-turvy set, Douglas' production captures the story's sense of wonder, with both Craig and Stephanie McGregor as Sophie operating their puppet selves with considerable charm. The magical atmosphere is accentuated even more by Michael John McCarthy's jaunty musical score, and there is fun to be had from Emily Winter's cut-glass impression of the Queen. It's when we finally see The BFG stretch to his full height, however, the show becomes massive.