Review: Blitzen on the Tyne at Live Theatre
If you’re going to involve children in the creation of your Christmas show, charm and eccentricity are probably what you’re looking for – and Live Theatre’s offering for youngsters has both in spades.
Well done, Danielle Slade and the collaborating bright sparks from the Northern Counties School and St John’s and High Spen primary schools – and director Becky Morris for channelling the products of their fertile imaginations into some sort of order.
But who can save the North Pole?
That’s the big question posed here, and climate change scientists had better pipe down – unless they can explain why something has gone wrong with the magic.
The snow globe’s on the blink (which is a shame because it’s pretty up there, the cherry on the top of Molly Barrett’s set). No snow globe, no snow. No snow, no magic.
The elves are fretting as they chuck gift-wrapped parcels around the stage – 13,001 iPads, 4,300 sets of matching family pyjamas and loads of other stuff thus despatched. They’d never get jobs at Amazon.
And there ARE elves at the North Pole. Everyone knows that. No penguins, though, kids (Attenborough would tell you). No penguins, no penguin poop. Sorry to spoil the joke.
But there are plenty more where that came from.
In the blink of an eye, the lady elf (Karen Traynor) morphs into Blitzen, a rather tremulous reindeer, who embarks on a quest to sort things out.
Incidentally, they work hard, the acting duo in this show. Elves one minute, pest control operatives the next (they’re the baddies. The one played by Micky Cochrane has a Brummie accent).
Blitzen rocks up on Tyneside – can’t quite remember how - against projected images of The Glasshouse and The Angel of the North.
At this point, of course, we’re firmly in Geordieland – stotties, the Metro, songs by Lindisfarne and the voice of the Newcastle United player they call BDB (Big Dan Burn).
Well, it sounded like him. And it made sections of the young audience quite animated.
Images on the screen of a certain ubiquitous purveyor of sausage rolls made them even more animated.
Suddenly Mr Cochrane is a pigeon called Jacky. A rather grumpy, down-and-out kind of pigeon who doesn’t believe in magic. A very Geordie pigeon who, quite naturally, the pest controllers are out to get.
“Catch the pigeon!”
Somehow, the day is saved by this unlikely duo, the tremulous reindeer and the grumpy pigeon, and everything is once again “warm and fuzzy and full”.
Back at the North Pole, with the natural order restored, the snow globe’s real influence put firmly in perspective and Christmas saved, everyone is very happy and huggy.
Absolutely everyone, including the mysterious silvery creature who appears occasionally and might be called Flake or might be called Blake.
No matter. Like everyone else, it was reet chuffed and that, at the end of the day, is what counts.
Blitzen On The Tyne runs until Sunday, December 22 with a range of daytime performances. Information and tickets from the Live Theatre website.