A Christmas Carol @ The Great Northern Playhouse 04.12.14

What do you think of when you think of Christmas - festive food? Merry music? Marley, Scrooge and Tiny Tim? Well if you do you'll be pleased to hear that the good people at The Great Northern Playhouse and The Flanagan Collective have wrapped all these elements up into one big gift with their dinner theatre production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

The production starts out in the foyer, where Marley invites you in to Scrooge's parlour to try and turn the midwinter miser into a veritable Old Saint Nick. Seated at benches, Marley and the audience suddenly become apparent to Scrooge, who begs they quit his house and haunt him no more. What follows is a playful interaction between Marley and Scrooge, calling upon some of Dickens' best bits - like where Scrooge suggests a man with Christmas on his lips should be, "boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart," - while still engaging directly with the audience.

Of course it is all very well being entertained by a witty repast, but that is soon forgotten if the food itself is not filling. While I am no restaurant critic or gourmet I can certainly say this was simple, tasty Christmas food in quantities that went beyond generous. Scrooge and Marley took part in the meal too, staying in character to read jokes pulled from crackers and chat about their lives outside of the script - Scrooge on this occasion being inspired to start up his own company called 'Wonga' that would perfectly align with his principles.

After dinner came singalong songs, parlour games and more straight drama from the play itself, culminating in Scrooge's conversion. As someone who attended on their own, and is normally slightly apprehensive about participatory pieces, this would not usually be my idea of fun...but fun it was. From the very first the actors brought the audience into the spirit of the thing, and by the end it felt like a night spent with friends.

This is a great way to sign off on The Great Northern Playhouse, a space that has been filled with interesting things and has put on productions that do it a bit differently. The team plan to return toward the middle of next year in a new location - definitely something to look forward to for 2015 - but for now I suggest you enjoy them while you can with this fun night out that gets even the most hardened drama critics into the Christmas spirit.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Images: Courtesy of Flanagan Collective

Sherlock Holmes: A Working Hypothesis @ The Great Northern Playhouse, 08.10.14

Participatory theatre. Those two words can strike fear into even the most hardened drama devotees. But they needn't, as when it is done well it represents the best things about live performance: it is spontaneous, unpredictable, engaging and endearing. Sherlock Holmes: A Working Hypothesis, is a fine example of just why that is.

Upon climbing the stairs to the newly opened Great Northern Playhouse you are confronted by a man with a walking stick and a decidedly dubious foreign accent. A name-tag is stuck to your front and information about the evening's events - a lecture on the deducting methods of Sherlock Holmes - is shoved into your hand.

Problems, puzzles and party hats aplenty follow, the audience interacting with one another as well as the performers, while the mystery of Professor Moriaty's whereabouts is slowly unwoven. Highlights include a fact-finding foray during the interval, a practical lesson in deducing facts from the faces of fellow audience members and a short improvised dance session.

The performers won the audience over early on with their energy and enthusiasm, and soon had us doing whatever they wanted. The script, written by Alexander Wright, stayed true to the Conan Doyle style and kept the story moving along at a good pace. However, the second half did not quite keep up the promise of the first, with the play reverting to a rather more traditional format that wasn't quite as fun to follow.

If you're scared of audience interaction Sherlock Holmes: A Working Hypothesis presents an opportunity to try some total immersion therapy; I suggest you take it.

Words: Andrew Anderson

Image: Courtesy of The Flanagan Collective