GRANDAD'S BIG ADVENTURE. To 4 January.

Chichester

GRANDAD'S BIG ADVENTURE
by Charles Way

Minerva Theatre To 4 January 2003
31 December 3,4 January10.30am & 2pm
30 December 2 January 2pm
Runs 1hr 15min No interval

TICKETS 01243 781312
Review Timothy Ramsden 27 December

Up the Pole again with Charles Way, this time for a younger age group, in a story of unhappiness largely resolved.Charles Way's rip-off – sorry, recycling – er, that is, reworking – of his 2001 play The Night Before Christmas for 4-8s loses the wartime context, keeping the idea of a family splintered by circumstances on a reduced level.

Young Tracy is in hospital over Christmas for an operation. Visited by mum, and finding grandad an in-patient with an ingrowing toenail, she's upset dad's not around for Christmas. He's a lorry-driver struggling through the bad weather to reach her.

For younger audiences, Way doesn't develop the shadow in the head which Tracy is to have sorted the following Monday. She doesn't seem threatened by it; possibly – given she loves writing – it helps her dream or create the story central to both plays.

This involves Tomtemor, an out-patient who drops in from an unusual direction. Her husband Tomtefar is the Swedish Father Christmas, only he's gone AWOL having decided there's no point in Christmas this year. Night made out this was owing to the war; now it's a more generalised, personal gloom which recalls the Santa of Mike Kenny's Ho! Ho! Ho! of the same recent vintage and for the same age-group.

In a bid to find, rescue and cheer Tomtefar, Tracy joins grandad in Tomtemor's sleigh. Grandad's extra adventure is sprouting antlers and a red nose, then getting to fly the sleigh northwards – grafting British Christmas myth onto the Swedish, whose Tomtefar apparently resides under floorboards and chooses a goat as his preferred means of transport.

The polar threat of Frost is understandably less developed than last year and Christmas is soon restored. There's a fascinating relation between familiarity and unlikelihood: the sleigh journey's preceded by Grandad and Tracy seeking each other through the hospital corridor maze, and her glimpsing of the rhyming hospital-radio DJ.

Dad, of course, makes it through the night: though this leaves the resolution still clouded by Tracy's impending hospital treatment: will it be successful; could it affect her lively imagination?

GaryMcCann's white set, opening out from a mystic recess to a an ice-like plain (echoing the script's 'ice'-verses), and the suitably northern Sibelius music are atmospherically used in Andy Brereton's well-cast, impressively lit production.

Tracy: Karen Fisher-Pollard
Mum/Tomtemor/Frost: Lynne Pearson
Grandad: David Plimmer
Sam/Tomtefar/Dad: Rob Richardson
Hospital Orderly: Guy Thompson

Director: Andy Brereton
Designer: Gary McCann
Lighting: Sam Gibbons
Sound: Kay Basson
Music: Janie Armour

2002-12-29 12:03:28