Review: Lyceum Christmas Tales
A show with a message, performed and streamed live from the Royal LyCEUM theatre, edinburgh. Reviewed By Mirren Gemmell
Throughout the show you get a total of four tales. Not only that, there were also some musical numbers in between some of the stories. I watched the show as a live stream: unfortunately since of the spread of Covid-19 it had to be held on the internet. All of the stories have a specific meaning according to what has happened, which I found very interesting.
First of all I saw The Christmas Ghost, which was definitely one of my favourites. The Christmas Ghost was written by Louise Ironside, performed by Ryan Hunter. In this story there was a boy named Davy who had a grandma named Granny Bell. Granny Bell always said she had some spiritual connections with ghosts.
One day Davy met a ghost named Ella – she had pale white skin with blue lipstick. He was terrified but they became friends. But Ella was not the ghost: it was Davy who had died of cholera – a sickness – in 1831. He had stayed in that form for 109 years, but when he was talking to Granny Bell he felt like he was real again. And the reason Ella had blue lips and pale skin was because she was a goth.
I must say this was my favourite tale, mainly because it evoked lots of emotion, and I actually felt quite bad for Davy when he realised he was a ghost. Not to mention the turn it took in the end: I would have never guessed he would be the ghost. It was over all a really good story.
The next story was a very inspiring one: Christmas with Angela Davis. In this story there was a little girl who wanted to grow up and make a difference – well, that’s what her family wanted. As she was walking through the park one day she saw a poster. And it said: “FREE ANGELA DAVIS!”
This woman was imprisoned for being black and no other reason other than the colour of her skin. And when the little girl found out, her only dream was to meet Angela Davis and for her to be free. On the night of Christmas Eve she saw Angela Davis and they went on an adventure, spreading the word that the colour of your skin does not matter.
I enjoyed this one mainly because of the message it put forward. This story was written by Jackie Kay, and performed by Helen Katamba.
After a small interval break, I watched The Returning of the Light. It was written by Lynda Radley and performed by Kristy Findlay. This tale was an ok story – it was not on my best list as I did get a little confused. At the beginning a girl went on an adventure and had to bring back the light to Christmas. She was on an adventure and then it turned into a battle. I didn’t like it as much as the other tales because it got off track.
Finishing off the performance was A Cold Snap, which was very funny. In this tale there was a woman who hated Christmas, but some Christmas gnomes came to change her mind. I thought this was the most hilarious tale out of all four of them, mainly because she was so furious. It was very entertaining. This tale was written by Shona Reppe and performed by Irene Allan.
Overall, watching Lyceum Christmas Tales was a great experience although it was different to do it online. I liked most of the stories, although in some I was quite lost and unsure of what was happening. Personally, my favourite was The Christmas Ghost because it was very interesting and intriguing, and I definitely did not see the ending coming. It was very fun to watch the show, and a good way to spend two hours.
Final rating: ★★★★⭐︎
