This Christmas, The Wardrobe Theatre is celebrating a decade occupying the back room at the Old Market Assembly – those who visited it’s previous incarnation in cosy space above the White Bear in Kingsdown will know full well why the moniker ‘Wardrobe’ is so apt. It is with the same DIY, optimistic spirit that it has become such an incredible Bristol institution, fighting the tide of polished banality that accompanies the city’s gentrification to maintain a punk ethos, a dazzling eccentricity that reflects the decent wedge of the population that prefers the alternative to the mainstream.
It is appropriate, then, that in celebrating 10 years, the company has put together it’s best new Christmas show in years. Moulin Scrooge follows its genre-mashing predecessors in colliding Moulin Rouge with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and pulls it off with huge energy and taut storytelling.
We are taken back in time to the Victorian era. Miserly, sadistic Ebeneezer Scrooge preys on those less fortunate, operating as a loan shark to desperate citizens. He is a man without ruth, crushing hopes beneath him and delivering canes to the behinds of his poverty-stricken neighbours. His nephew Cratchit, slaving away as Scrooge’s underling, dreams of a better life. Into this grim tale barrels Satine, the seductive and determined cabaret star of the Moulin Rouge in town, who has a business plan to turn the venue into a viable operation (complete with pop-up food vendors in shipping containers, of course.) All she has to do is convince the devilish Scrooge to support the business…
While the show contains all the usual local references, saucy innuendo and surprising moments that we have come to expect from The Wardrobe Theatre’s Christmas shows, what elevates Moulin Scrooge is the quality of the performances. It is great to have Emma Keaveney-Roys back performing, embodying Satine with lasciviousness and a wicked Australian accent – it might be a first for the use of the term “fleshy clunge-box”. Meanwhile, Alice Lamb portrays Cratchit with wide-eyed innocence that rebounds dynamically off his uncle’s malice.
Best of all, undoubtedly, is Peter Baker as Scrooge himself. Lanky, loathsome and monstrous, he stalks the stage and peers into the souls of the audience. His eyes become almost black with evil, and his snake-like tongue waggling could compete with Gene Simmons. In a show full of silliness, a central character of such sternness works fantastically, although Baker does get to have fun working up alternatives to the traditional “Bah Humbug” catchphrase.
Elsewhere, there are all the zany touches so associated with this back room during festive season. Pop hits litter the script, from Kylie to – pleasingly – The Shamen’s Ebeneezer Goode. There is a mass performance of karaoke and charades, an appearance by Kermit (plus a self-deprecatory insult to purveyors of puppetry) and a big, glittering finale. Even the presence of a heckler in the crowd, determined to shout out punchlines before they can be delivered by the cast, does not spoil what is an effervescent, inventive and endlessly entertaining show.
