Christmas Cracker

Christmas crackers are usually a mixture of party hats, silly corny jokes and small gifts of varying value dependent on how much one is prepared to pay.

So it was with the offering from St Austin’s, festive, secular, dramatic and comic. These ingredients combined to give a show in which the audience were left not knowing what was next in coming onto the stage in spite of being able to check in a comprehensive programme!

During the programme several tributes by way of comedy sketches and song were paid to celebrities who had departed this life in the past year, namely Ronnie Corbett, Victoria Wood, David Bowie and Terry Wogan. The cast made a great effort to give the audience an authentic flavour of these past masters of theatre with quite good results, although in my opinion the Victoria Wood sketch was far too long.

The choruses of youth and adult combined well in their renditions of pop numbers and Christmas carols and a word sheet presented with the programme ensured the audience were also included in the action. John de Tute and Tom Windle acting as comperes /comedians provided the linkage between numbers and sketches, in particular John’s magic trick involving a yellow bandana/banana went down extremely well.

The lighting was as usual of an excellent quality as one has come to expect with this society, and whilst the music was fairly subdued throughout the evening I thought that there was not enough light and shade in the singing. It was mostly at the same level.

However the evening went off as a success and as I understand that this was the first time that St Austin’s had attempted a Christmas style show it was a very commendable effort.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.