PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bristol Old Vic Basement (Thur 8-Sat 17 Dec)

THEATRE Sometimes a piece of performance is so right that it makes you feel glad to be alive and in possession of senses. ‘The Morpeth Carol’ is such a piece and, like a pure note struck on chime, it continues to resonate in the tympanic bones well beyond its ending.

The setting of this play for the ears is simplicity itself: four performers are ranged along a wooden trestle table, each caught in a pool of lamplight with a mic and a script. At the end of the table - like a pale version of God - sits Tim X Attack, one half of Sleepdogs and the piece's co-creator, twiddling knobs at a mixing desk to conjure a soundscape that invites us to crunch our way through snow, recoil at the sound of gunshots, or brace for impact at the sound of screeching brakes. The sonic mix leads us by the ears into a vivid visual landscape where all senses are heightened and expectant – the audience grows very still, like a huddle of urban Inuits sitting round a blow-hole, poised and listening. It’s everything you’d wish radio would be.

Within this pristine setting, a richly imagined cast of characters spins a deliciously nuanced tallest of tales that puts the slay back into sleighbells. There’s a Santa (Joe Shire) with an epigrammatic touch of Satan, a cosmic jobsworth with a dangerous edge, a shotgun and a sonorous voice of darkest chocolate. Crash-landing on earth like a fallen angel, Shire's Santa makes a bleak midwinter up North feel as alien and inhospitable as infinite space (“the universe is a TERRIBLE place, Harry…”). Elsewhere, Jessica Macdonald plays a put-upon wife and a world-weary shop girl with earthy grit and an audible shiver in her voice. Adam Peck is solid as the older voice of Harry, a protective yet unsentimental interpreter who tries to make sense of the past on behalf of his younger self. And Malcolm Hamilton is pitch-perfect as young Harry, capturing the half-understanding of the child in tone and cadence with a sensitivity and integrity devoid of affectation – this central role sparkles like snow on all sides, and should not be missed.

Wonderfully cast and directed by Tanuja Amarasuriya (Sleepdogs' other half), ‘The Morpeth Carol’ is both a rare treat and an antidote to seasonal saccharine. Give yourself an early Xmas prezzie in the form of a ticket – but hurry while stocks last. (Rina Vergano)

Copyright Rina Vergano 2011