Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol ★★★★ Southbank Centre | Dec 8, 2022 - Jan 8, 2023


It's 1936 and it's going to be a harsh Christmas in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee! Dickens' A Christmas Carol gets a country music makeover from Dolly Parton and company that is as big, brash and boisterous as the singer herself. Scrooge, who is convincingly played by Robert Bathurst, is now the major employer in a small mining town, and his heart is as black and as hard as the coal that is the source of his wealth. It takes the usual gang of ghosts to cause him to embrace the Christmas spirit, but once again he eventually gets there. This transposition of the classic story to the era of the Great Depression and to the notoriously impoverished coal mining region of America works well to reinforce the timelessness of Dickens' themes and to bring home his message of charity and community. Likewise, Dolly Parton's songs have uncomplicated lyrics and clear melody lines which make them instantly relatable and easily engaging. "Appalachian Snowfall," "Circle of Love" and "Three Candles" all become imprinted on the audience from the moment of their first performance. The whole cast get into the spirit of the piece and Danny Whitehead gives a strong performance as Fred and as the young Scrooge. George Maguire is a fine Bob Cratchit, but if we had a quibble, it would be that he was difficult to understand in his role as Marley and the "Hell' song didn't really resonate. The idea of Christmas Future communicating with Scrooge entirely through music was both novel and effective, making sense of the fact that Scrooge himself does not find his voice until he has embraced the spirit of the season. When he does, however, Bathurst's "I've Changed" is suitably inspiring. Indeed, this is a show that should lift the mood of everyone who sees it while confirming that Dickens' Christmas message continues to transcend both time and place.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Manuel Harlan.

Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: London SE1, UK

Most Popular

King of Pangea ★★ King's Head Theatre | Jun 7 - Jul 6, 2025

Image
When Sam Crow's mother is ill, she is constantly positive. She is always looking forward to things being better. It is an optimism that the young Sam adopts, but when his mother dies, it leaves him uncertain about how to adjust to that situation. Then, he remembers the tale his mother used to tell him about the island of Pangea, a wonderful mythical place; he thinks about that land and wonders if the means of sorting out his complex emotions about her loss might be found there. King of Pangea is a slight fable about loss and reconciliation to the reality of death, but it never really works. The rather forced metaphor about finding the final piece of the puzzle and the journey to the fabled land all fall rather flat. A major issue is that this doesn't seem like a fully thought-out fantasy place, and the whole sequence about the magic coins fails to resonate. Luring an audience into an imaginative construct is never an easy task, and in this case, Pangea simply doesn't engag...
Full Details »

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

Intimate Apparel ★★★★★ Donmar Warehouse | Jun 20 - Aug 9, 2025

Image
Lynn Nottage's play follows the fortunes of a young black seamstress in 1905 New York. Esther makes undergarments for the wealthy, and the central metaphor of the play is that just as her corsets control and distort women's figures to meet the dictates of fashion, all of the characters in the story find their lives defined and limited by race, gender, class and religion. From the wealthy Mrs Van Buren who must play her part in society while privately enduring a loveless marriage, to the cloth merchant, Mr Marks, whose religion does not allow him to be touched by a woman who is not in his family and which would never sanction a relationship with a black woman, everyone in Esther's world is trapped. However, it is through love and marriage that Esther hopes she will find freedom and escape from the restrictions of her situation. Although Esther's friends, the landlady Mrs Dickson and the prostitute, Mayme, counsel a life based on compromise, Esther hopes that her romantic...
Full Details »

Stereophonic ★★★★ Duke of York's Theatre | May 24 - Oct 11, 2025

Image
The show that was nominated for more Tony awards than any other has now arrived in London! Nominated for thirteen awards and winning five, this musical set in 1976-1977, is a deep look at a rock band's creation of their latest album. It is a fascinating insight into the music industry and into the collaborative creative process. Five members of a band, plus two engineers, struggle to produce a new album, and as they do so, the individual personalities and relationships that exist disintegrate and are reconstructed. In fact, the process of artistic invention, and re-invention, that results in the album mirrors what the band members themselves go through. This unnamed British-American rock band is composed of the driven, perfectionist Peter, his insecure vocalist, songwriter partner, Diana, the drug-addled bass player, Reg, his long-suffering spouse the keyboardist, Holly, and the apparent adult in the room, the band's drummer, Simon. This quintet is supported by two goofy, but o...
Full Details »

Edward Burra - Ithell Colquhoun ★★★★ Tate Britain | Jun 13 - Oct 19, 2025

Image
Both these exhibitions provide fascinating retrospectives on the work of two roughly contemporary artists who have often been under-appreciated. Edward Burra was born in 1905 and died in 1976, while Ithell Colquhoun was born in 1906 and died in 1988. Both were influenced by the surrealist movement, but while Colquhoun's work is replete with symbolism reflecting her occult and spiritual interests, Burra's oeuvre is more grounded in time and place. From his early works which were depictions of the life of the demimonde in the cafés and cabarets of France, through his celebration of America's Harlem Renaissance, to the artist's final works which suggest his despair regarding the industrial despoilment of the English countryside, there is a detached, sardonic side to Burra's work that stands in contrast to Colquhoun's spiritual earnestness. Although the Spanish Civil War and World War II profoundly affected Burra and his output, bringing a dark, almost cynical, tone...
Full Details »

The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs ★★★ Kiln Theatre | Jun 13 - Jul 12, 2025

Image
Iman Qureshi's delightful tale of a group of six women who come together to form a choir has much to recommend it. It is full of humour, and its political heart is in the right place. The characters are nicely drawn, and it is easy to identify both with them and with their plights: Lori's issue is that she is not out to her church-going family; Ana is determined to be politically correct at all costs, but she is also consumed by jealousy and fearful that Lori might leave her; Dina is from an Arab culture which wouldn't accept her orientation and she has an emotionally abusive husband; Fi is a wheelchair user who is going through a divorce and who has some questionable views about who should actually be part of the sisterhood; Bridget is a trans woman looking for love and acceptance; and, Ellie is a promiscuous non-binary individual who is exploring their identity. This group of songsters is presided over by Connie, the OWL (Old Wise Lesbian) who proves to be the work's ...
Full Details »

Showmanism ★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Jun 18 - Jul 12, 2025

Image
It's summertime and the season of fringe theatre is upon us. One-person shows, performers with niche talents and curious experimentation are among the hallmarks of this annual experience, and Showmanism certainly meets the above criteria. Created by and starring Dickie Beau whose gift is a formidable ability to lip-sync and some skill at mime, this production is a collage of various interesting commentaries about the theatre and theatrical production. The various snippets are neatly patched together, but their relevance to each other is left for the audience to determine. They run from the challenging and academic to the silly and anecdotal, and they certainly provide a quirky pastiche of commentary about the art of performance. From the acoustics of the Ancient Greek amphitheatres, to feminist questions about drag, to a reminiscence about a visit to Oberammergau, there are lots of interesting insights here, and an enormous amount of material is covered. To the proceedings, Dickie...
Full Details »

Evita ★★★★ The London Palladium | Until September 6, 2025

Image
If you have seen previous productions of Evita , or even the film, you will first need to put aside any preconceptions arising from those experiences. Jamie Lloyd's reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic will probably enrage some as much as it will delight others. There is no attempt to realistically present events here, and not much effort to tell the story of Eva Perón. This is a raucous, raunchy, concert version of the rags to riches story of Argentina's most famous First Lady. What was previously an operatic telling of her tale and a complex study of political compromise and the corruption of power is now a theatrical experience. In this production, every number is sung at a volume of plus ten, and the energetic choreography is dialled up to the max, overwhelming any story or character development. In fact, the characters barely interact. They all play to the audience often with microphones in their hands. The set is a bare-bones affair, matching the costumes whic...
Full Details »

Summer Exhibition 2025 ★★★★ Royal Academy of Arts | Jun 17 - Aug 17, 2025

Image
The first summer exhibition at the Royal Academy was in 1769. For 257 years this annual show has been delighting, disconcerting and defying art lovers. The theme of this year's exhibition is "Dialogues," and it continues in the show's time-honoured tradition. There is something here for everyone, and probably the odd thing for no one. The Co-ordinator for this year's exhibition, Farshid Moussavi and her team have assembled an extraordinarily eclectic group of works and have done a superb job of reflecting the exhibition's theme. For the first time architectural works have been spread throughout the various galleries and that integration sets up a conversation with the other pieces that is quite fascinating. The dialogue is present in many forms, however: from the whimsical such as Adam Dant's Capital City - A Cat-ographic View of London (992) and Chris Orr's The Old Mill by the Stream (1008) to the confounding like John Humphreys' Lulu in the Sky...
Full Details »

4.48 Psychosis ★★★★ Royal Court Theatre | Jun 12 - Jul 5, 2025

Image
Perhaps more performance art than play, 4.48 Psychosis only attempts to do one thing. It seeks to create for the audience the experience of psychosis, and it manages to do so with a terrifying veracity. The audience is immersed in the anger, despair and desperation of individuals who are on the verge of taking their own lives as they can find no relief from their pain in either doctors or drugs. It is a gruelling 70 minutes of theatre, and when one of the characters says she feels as if she is being manipulated, the audience can probably wholeheartedly identify with that feeling. And, that may be an issue for this experience; for with the sense of emotional manipulation, comes withdrawal and distancing. Based on some of the darkly humorous comments we overheard as we left the theatre, this reaction may have been the case for several audience members. The sheer intensity of work had probably forced them out of the moment, and may ultimately have defeated the writer's purpose of eng...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings