Cutting Drama
The Signalman
by Charles Dickens, dramatised by Jennie-Mae James
Mudlark Creativeat Drayton Arms Theatre, South Kensington until 2ndJanuary 2026
Review by Harry Zimmerman
We are in the middle of peak season for two forms of theatre, both very different but hugely popular. The first, of course, is pantomime. The second feeds in to our love of a creepy ghost story to while away the long winter nights and inject a frisson of fear into our festive gatherings.
Mudlark Creative have chosen as their seasonal offering Charles Dickens’s The Signalman, a well-known eerie tale which has been featured regularly in film, radio and on stage as a contribution to the Christmas supernatural canon. One of the most famous adaptations was in 1976 as part of the much-loved BBC series A Ghost Story for Christmas, with Denholm Elliott in the eponymous role. A wider UK national tour of the piece is also currently taking place. The appeal of the ghost story remains undiminished.
Read more…A Jewel in a Perfect Setting
Messiah
by George Frideric Handel, text by Charles Jennens
Wild Arts at Sinfonia, Smith Square, Westminster, 9th December and on tour until 18th December
Review by Patrick Shorrock
It is hard to think of a more suitable setting for Handel’s Messiah than St John’s, Smith Square (now rebranded as Sinfonia Smith Square, but still as gorgeously baroque as ever). Built in the early 18th Century, this a church where the white ornateness of the Corinthian columns forms a pleasing contrast with the symmetry of the interior (plain in its neatness, to use Milton’s phrase) and the glorious wackiness of its four towers. It has been a delightful concert venue since 1969 and needs to be less of a well-kept secret.
Read more…Merry Magic Men
Robin Hood
by Harry Michaels, additional material by Pete Firman
Crossroads Live at the New Wimbledon Theatre until 4thJanuary 2026
Review by Thea Diamond
Arriving at New Wimbledon Theatre for press night, the auditorium was bustling with excitement and Christmas sparkle in anticipation of the panto spectacle, Robin Hood. Starring Ashley Banjo, Jordan Banjo, Perri Kiely and the rest of Diversity, this was set to be a night to remember.
Who could forget being completely wowed way back in 2009 when Diversity burst onto our screens, winning Britain’s Got Talent, securing first place over bookies’ favourite, Susan Boyle. And their performance last night certainly didn’t disappoint. From the moment the acclaimed street dance troop somersaulted onto the stage, Ashley Banjo’s choreography was executed so precisely that the audience went wild with every gravity defying move.
Read more…Out of This World
Cinderella
by James Rushbrooke
The Questors Theatre at the Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing until 31st December
Review by Polly Davies
I can think of no better way to cope with the run-up to Christmas than to make time for a trip to Questors to see this production of Cinderella. Totally engaging, beautifully produced, it delivers sheer joy. If you can go on an evening that has a group as infectiously enthusiastic as the young scouts who were in the audience tonight even better. It was an added bonus to see children so total invested in the performance. All credit to the leaders who were skilfully managing this excited and engaged group whose enthusiasm was infectious.
It was a stroke of genius by James Rushbrooke to set the story of Cinderella in the 1980s in a universe far far away, a modernisation that made the evening even more pantomime than a traditional setting. With exaggerated costumes, big hair, neon-bright colours, director Rory Hobson was able to go full out brash, blousy and fun. The script didn’t miss an opportunity for the corniest of corny jokes, and lots of familiar pantomime audience interaction. Some story lines were scary enough for some raise-the-roof booing. There was an interesting double love story which brought out the “aahs” for the inevitable happy endings, and a really good use of the auditorium to bring the players closer to the audience all added to the atmosphere.
Read more…Infernal Nonsense = Jolly Good Evening
H.M.S. Pinafore
by Arthur Sullivan, words by W.S. Gilbert
English National Opera at the London Coliseum until 7th February 2026
Review by Patrick Shorrock
This ship-shape revival of what Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance called ‘infernal nonsense’ sails triumphantly back into the Coliseum to be welcomed enthusiastically by a delighted audience. It’s a perfect Christmas treat. Nothing very demanding. Lavish sets and costumes by takis that equal Julian Clary’s Palladium panto shows in their colourful splendour. Generally excellent performers (including someone from the telly). And stuffed with great comic gags. (Over stuffed perhaps? No, never! What, never? Well, hardly ever!)
Read more…Fresh From the Oven
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens, adapted by Beth Flintoff
ReadingRep Company at the Reading Rep Theatre until 3rdJanuary 2026
Review by Sam Martin
Reading Rep’s latest festive offering, Beth Flintoff’s re-imagining of A Christmas Carol, is a joyous reminder of why this company has become synonymous with bold, heartfelt reinventions of classic tales. Here Dickens’s familiar morality story is transplanted into the beating heart of Reading’s industrial past: Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit factory. It is a choice that proves both quaint and quietly brilliant. Local references ripple warmly through the script, doubling the audience’s sense of belonging and making the story feel as though it has risen, fresh from the oven, out of Reading’s own history.
Read more…Artistry For Advent
Messiah
by George Frideric Handel, libretto by Charles Jennens
Glyndebourne Productions at Glyndebourne Festival Theatre until 14th December
Review by Mark Aspen
Advent Sunday this year is unwontedly sunny, so what could be more appropriate a day to see Glyndebourne’s Messiah, with its uplifting message of wonderful things to come. As a message even more needed in these present days when all news seems to teeter on despair, Messiah speaks loudly of hope, an advent of peace and redemption. Maybe this is why Handel’s masterpiece remains so enduringly popular and why even the most agnostic could not fail to be touched by it. Messiah has a powerful aura of hope and a sense of joy.
Joy is Handel’s musical stock-in-trade, that Baroque style that just bubbles along, and it is palpable in Glyndebourne’s heartwarming concert production. It is a resplendent mixture of urgency, contemplation and reflection. The sense of urgency was no doubt conceived by Handel’s manic impetus to create this massive and majestic work within an obsessive three and a half weeks of continuous labour. This production succeeds in just restraining that urgency enough to allow the poetry of the words and their meaning to be savoured.
Read more…Retro Dreamscape
Hansel and Gretel
by Hannah Lobley
Teddington Theatre Club at the Hampton Hill Theatre until 6th December
Review by Brent Muirhouse
Pantomime, by its very nature, is fun. Many pantos lean heavily on stories most of the audience have known since childhood, and follow a plot that is expected, decorated with a few moments of more updated candy-cane comedy and titters o’ tinsel. Few tend to open with ten minutes in which one wonders quite sincerely what on earth is going on, like Teddington Theatre Company’s production of Hansel and Gretel at the Hampton Hill Theatre.
Read more…Messiah as Drama
Messiah
by George Frideric Handel, libretto by Charles Jennens
Merry Opera Company at St Luke’s Church, Eltham Park and on tour until 6th December
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Performances of Handel’s Messiah at this time of year are as ubiquitous as pantomimes. But Messiah doesn’t stop at Jesus’s birth – but goes on to recount his death and resurrection – and is probably more suitable for Easter than Christmas. But if it’s performed in the build up to Holy Week, it tends to get crowded out by the Bach Passions, which I suppose it why Advent performances of Messiah have become almost a tradition.
Attempts to stage Handel’s oratorios where the text is dramatic – Semele, Theodora, Jephtha, Saul – are quite common now. What is rarer is deciding to stage Messiah, which is a reflective rather than a dramatic piece – even if the events it alludes to are nothing less than the redemption of all creation – where the text consists entirely of quotations from scripture. That said, English National Opera did it in 2009 and the Merry Opera Company are doing it now, and Wild Arts will be doing it next month.
Read more…Bottled Out
East of Adelaide
by Julia Thurston
Threedumb Theatre at Arches Lane Theatre, Battersea Power Station until 6thDecember
Review by Denis Valentine
Threedumb Theatre and its writer Julia Thurston are back after their last award-winning piece Paved with Gold and Ashes, with East Of Adelaide. With a personal touch and generational link to Thurston, the story tries to uncover and look into the lifetimes of three women in the mid 1800s and how a relationship with one man, Henry Bottle, affected their lives.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 