THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Charles Way. Polka Theatre to 2 February.
London
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
by Charles Way
Polka Theatre To 2 February 2002
Runs 2hr One interval
TICKETS 020 8543 4888
Review Timothy Ramsden 13 December 2001
From 1941 London to a mythical home at the North Pole, this is a strong story with understanding and sympathy for young people's viewpoints.I wouldn't have thought World War II a good setting for a play speaking to today's young, but Charles Way gives a universality to the story of wartime orphan Jimmy Tibbs by taking him off to Santa land, where the character of Frost, a kind of Snow King, is linked with the human conflict that leads to war.
Way's success partly lies with his child's view of events. In Jimmy's opening nightmare before Christmas - an imagined air-raid - even the comforting presence of his mother vanishes as he wakes. The grandparents he lives with cannot understand what he's going through and Grandad George in particular is as miserable a figure as could claim descent from Ebenezer Scrooge.
Despite all this, in some ways Nightmare is one of Way's lighter pieces for the young. Comedy arrives with Jimmy's friends, Gladys the sergeant's daughter who loves putting radio ham Sam through military-style drill. In a deft touch there are several casual references to Sam's mum as a hard-drinker. Yet Sam lives on, apparently unaffected.
The script also catches the particular flavour of childhood logic, like Gladys's pronouncement that she hates poetry, volunteering the reason, that 'It rhymes.' And Jimmy's fear of heights, introduced as part of a children's game, takes on a new dimension as he flies through the clouds with the figure of Mrs Father Christmas (a staging triumph). The mission is to rescue her husband from the coldly depressive view that no wartime child cares for presents any more. In rescuing Santa from Frost's cold clutches, Jimmy also develops as a person. Along with the figure of Frost, this recalls another fine Christmas play, Stuart Paterson's The Snow Queen.
With so many dramatic threads tying together, it's natural the play ends with Jimmy again huddled dreamlike into his shell. But this time he's rescued from despair by the real presence of mother, home from her Liverpool war work.
Strongly played throughout, this is a near ideal piece. Perhaps George's conversion to Christmassy niceness is a bit too easily achieved, but in all other respects we have a fine addition to the growing Christmas canon of story-based adventures for young people.
Jimmy Tibbs: Richard Tench
Vi/Tomtemor: Dystin Johnson
Iris: Carole Dance
George/Tomtefar: Peter Sowerbutts
Gladys Pearce: Nicole Davis
Sam McCann/Frost: Mark Stevenson
Director: Vicky Ireland
Designer: Alex Bunn
Lighting: Peter Higton
Sound: Andrew Dodge
2001-12-17 00:03:04