The Night Before Christmas

Published Thursday 20 December 2007 at 14:35 by Susan Elkin

This show is the witty and attractive story about Eddie the mouse (Cheryl Blaize) evicted from a warm house on Christmas Eve by a rather thoughtless little girl (Emily Brooks) who can think only of her own forthcoming presents and says that Christmas isn’t for mice. What follows is a quest for Eddie to get back into the house and enjoy Christmas, assisted by a robot toy (Jonathan Race), reminiscent of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz and a fairy from the top of the Christmas tree, doubled by Emily Brooks.

Blaize’s beleaguered mouse is cheerful, funny and a charismatically acrobatic dancer. Race is totally convincing as the dad trying to get his daughter to sleep on Christmas Eve and is good value as the toy whose batteries keep failing so the audience has to provide warmth for recharging. Brooks’ petulant Emily struts and pouts as she manipulates her father. And as Fairy Lizzie, she pirouettes and makes up silly rhymes. There’s a lovely scene with a huge green-eyed cat puppet (silkily voiced by Steve Pinder) who wants Eddie for supper. He is seen off by concerted audience woofing.

It’s a small-scale show for very young children, but The Night Before Christmas - which makes imaginative use of single hinged flats for scene changes and has some good songs - is a fine piece of theatre.