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Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Three stars

 

Christmas has either come early, late or is now an all year round thing judging by the title of the suitably named Mischief Theatre Company’s latest excursion into on and off stage chaos care of their perennially O.T.T. Cornley Amateur Drama Society. As it is, for fans of the, ahem, C.A.D.S. since their inception a decade and a half ago with the cunningly titled The Play that Goes Wrong, such out of season anomalies will be as predictably familiar as much as the show is a chance to catch up with old friends.

 

Cue Daniel Lewis’s dictatorial director Chris, Henry Lewis’s old ham Robert, Greg Tannahill’s nervous wreck Jonathan, Ashley Tucker’s stars in her eyes Sandra and the rest of a company with only a passing knowledge of Charles Dickens’ classic festive yarn, and even then only by way of the Muppets. With Chris casting himself as Scrooge, what follows beyond the Christmas jumpers, Jonathan’s fear of heights, young Dennis’ inability to learn lines, an accidentally customised set model and a Transit van crashing through the stage wall is a comedy of error after error after error.

 

Beyond a litany of giant Maltesers, a life size Barbie kitchen and an already terrifying puppet Tiny Tim writ very large indeed, Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields’ script for Matt DiCarlo’s production remains surprisingly faithful to Dickens’ story. It also manages to use it as a wake up call for the C.A.D.S. who have bonded into a dysfunctional community.

 

Based on a starry fifty-minute TV version screened in 2017 and touring following a West End run, Mischief’s creation sees what started out as a bit of a student wheeze all those years ago come of comic age. If the ghosts of 1970s TV shows past haunt the piece in the form of The Generation Game by way of a Crackerjack pantomime, it nevertheless taps into the vulnerabilities of an actor’s lot beyond the luvvy darling posturing. It will be interesting to see what Mischief – and the C.A.D.S. – go on to mess up next.


The Herald, February 12th 2026

 

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