A Christmas Carol (Farndale)

It is easy to be a ham actor but not so easy to act being a ham actor, so that we can safely laugh at the characters on stage rather than being merely uncomfortable. Trinity’s hard-working Farndale cast, many of whom played several characters and all of whom had multiple costumes, succeeded admirably at pretending to be ham actors and entertained us hilariously. All the amdram stereotypes were packed into one small cast, from the officious chairperson, the dodgy accompanist, the actor with the Olivier delusion, the bolshy stage-manager to the literal-minded pedant. Stir in an obvious set of ham injuries (leg in a cast, arm in a sling), some outrageous props and a rogue microphone and the scope for hilarity is enormous. At times the silliness was so funny as to make this reviewer cry with laughter. I am not sure there is any point in going in to further detail. There were no obvious flaws from an audience perspective but how would we know, since this play could be very different from one night to the next and be equally funny. The lighting changes were slick and while some of the scene changes were not seamless I could see that there was time needed for rapid costume changes. Natalie Hawkes did very well with a very wordy role as Scrooge and seemed to cope with whatever madness was going on around her. Helen Wilson played all of her roles with a sort of vulnerable intensity, the curious combination of which was hugely endearing, whether as a snowman, ballet dancer, ghost or as Scrooge’s nephew. Emma Byatt’s Mercedes was a constant source of delight and seemed to represent the very essence of schadenfreude – again and again – as she hit the deck more times than I can recall. David Ehren’s Marley, his ghosts and Mrs Cratchit epitomized reluctant participation, in a good way, giving us an almost child-like, uninhibited, under-stated performance that added to the ridiculousness of it all.  By contrast Alison O‘Malley was the no-nonsense, process-driven, patronising literalist that made Mrs Reece such a figure of fun. Well done to all, not forgetting Olga (Terri Latimer) and Les (Val Scott) for their word-less but vital roles around the piano.

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