Review: ANOTHER NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Bridge House Theatre, 30 November 2016

Thirtysomething Carole is fed up with her job and fed up with her love life and the last thing she needs is the forced jollity of Christmas. She opens a bottle of wine, settles down for the Christmas Eve Bake Off Special, lets her mother nag away on the answerphone and wonders how things turned out like this. Suddenly, there's a burglar in her flat, the homeless man she gave her bag of office party leftovers to on the way in. How did he get past her expensive security system? What does he want? Who is he?

While Carole frantically tries to call the police, the man insists that he's there not in her flat to take, but to give, after all, he is Santa Claus and that's the job description. Can he bring glad tidings and joy to Carole's humdrum world? Will she be inspired to take a chance on the ex she still loves? Can he really be who he says he is?

Another Night Before Christmas has echoes of It's A Wonderful Life (previously produced at this venue by director Guy Retallack), but it's very much its own fable, contemporary, brimming with wit and very funny jokes (super work from book and lyrics writer, Sean Grennan) and just the right side of sentimental. The music is splendid too, Leah Okimoto's catchy tunes nice and easy on the ear, never more so than in "Kill Der Bingle", a plea to see off... well, no spoilers!

It's a musical two-hander, so casting is critical and it could hardly be any better. Rachael Wooding gives Carole a steely vulnerability - she doesn't panic on discovering the intruder and she's got plenty of the tough carapace a London social worker develops, but she's also lonely and worried about whether she has made the right choices and what the consequences will be. George Maguire has charisma to burn, showing all his Olivier Award winning pedigree, as he invests the mysterious visitor with charm and humour, but just enough edgy temper to prove he's no fairytale Prince with glib answers for the damsel in distress.

As the night wears on, the pair learn more about each other and, it must be said, we learn more about ourselves, about the empathy that the Christmas season requires, about the fractured families of single occupancy London life and about why it's sometimes right to believe in things that cannot be true. It's a lovely, lovely show with a pitch perfect script, wonderful songs and two warm performances that are pretty much unimprovable. It's the grown-ups' version of the best kind of Christmas bedtime story, the one that sent you to sleep on Christmas Eve, cosy and secure, and looking forward to the day to come.

The venue is a bit off the beaten track, but the ticket prices are keen - very keen compared to big pantos - and if anything can make me look forward to Christmas Day, it's a show that's done its job!

Another Night Before Christmas continues at the Bridge House Theatre until 23 December.

Photo Robert Workman

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