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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Susie McKenna.
Cast: Erin Lister (puppeteer), Gareth Hale, Matthew White (voice), Michael Matus, Brian Herring (puppeteer), Sharon D. Clarke (voice), Simon Lipkin, Rebecca Thornhill
Description: An adaptation of Charles Dickens's ghost story about a miser who learns the true meaning of Christmas. Starring Gareth Hale and Rebecca Thornhill.
Trains: Tube: Covent Garden 
Phone: 0845017 5584
Website: www.artstheatrewestend.com
Extra info: Pub
Humbug: Gareth Hale is unconvincing as Scrooge
A Christmas Carol is usually a reliably “It’s behind you!”-free zone. There don’t tend to be many group sing-alongs either but if you whizz into the West End a writer-director acclaimed for making the Hackney Empire pantomime the best in London, you might expect a bit of audience participation.
Quite how Susie McKenna is managing to direct both this and Hackney’s Aladdin, which opens next week, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps if she had less on she’d realise that the contemporary framing device with which she encircles this action is not only odd but nonsensical. Why have old grump Sidney (puce-faced Gareth Hale, of Hale and Pace fame) and his nephew Danny (Simon Lipkin) been hired to redecorate the foyer of the Arts Theatre when the audience is already in situ? And if there are punters, where the hell are the “real” actors?
Off we hurtle to let’s-do-the-show-right-here musical Dickens, with an occasional jarring intermingling of current concerns. The Ghost of Christmas Present gets het up about multiculturalism, Marley’s Ghost sings a camp tap number, I am Doomed, and Hale convinces ever less as Scrooge. The glorious narrative of redemption is egregiously short-changed by all this jiggling about, and by the fact that the Scrooge-like cast of four is increasingly reliant on talking cat and mouse puppets. When the mouse, playing Tiny Tim, started singing a ballad about cheese, I sank down in my seat with a loud: “Bah, humbug!”
Until 10 Jan (0845 017 5584, www.christmascarolthemusical.co.uk).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
