Santa the Musical * *
at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
Review by Alison Jones
There are very few people that could upstage Santa on Christmas Eve, yet Anita Dobson as the Ice Queen somehow manages it.
She gives a performance so demented it's hard to work out whether it is a work of twisted comedic genius or whether men in white coats should be sent for. By turns behaving like Rain Man, Mae West, a two-year-old hopped up on Tartrazine and a Duracell bunny whose battery acid is leaking, her interpretation of the role only begins to make sense when we learn she is a malfunctioning toy.
LikeTin Man in Wizard of Oz, all she wants is a heart and she is intent on ripping one out of a child. Until then she plans to ruin Christmas for everyone else by giving the reindeer flu and freezing the elves.
The other half of the wrapping paper-thin plot concerns a little girl who wants a husband for her widowed mother, and as chief elf Joe is the only male tall enough to make eye contact, the audience can swiftly see where this is heading.
This is a musical-by-numbers. All the right ingredients – colourful sets, bright costumes, dancing penguins and polar bears, talking reindeer, singing crows and even a flying sleigh – are added in the hope of producing something magical, instead it simply feels forced.
The songs do the job, occasionally veering towards the saccharine. But, with the exception of Put A Little Heat In Your Feet and the Ice Queen's Bond-ian theme tune, they are largely forgettable.
Kim Ismay attacks her role as Miss Drift, Santa's right hand woman with amusing vigour and Roy Barraclough is all twinkly-eyed charm as the man in red.
However, Russ Spencer, of Eurovision flops Scooch, as Joe, and Joanne Farrell, as the beautiful widow, fail to conjure up much chemistry.
A snow machine and Anita Dobson's eminently hissable baddy seem enough to distract the younger audience members. However, one can't help feeling that the production of Scrooge that arrives unseasonably late at the Alex in January, would have been a far more satisfying experience for the family.
Running time: Two hours, 40 minutes. Until December 30.
