The word “believe” has been projected in big letters up St John’s Beacon just behind the Playhouse. It’s a reference to the central theme of Miracle on 34th Street: the idea that when it comes to Santa Claus, faith is more fulfilling than scepticism. Isn’t the world a better place, the show seems to say, for people believing in goodness and generosity? The philosophy is championed by Tim Parker’s avuncular Kris Kringle, cheerfully asserting his claim to be the real Father Christmas as he takes over the grotto in Macy’s department store. The management will believe in him only for as long as he turns a profit. Every wide-eyed child knows better.
At the other end of the scale is Caitlin Berry’s Doris Walker, Kringle’s employer. She’s a tough nut to crack, hard-nosed in business but also hard-bitten in love. Having been abandoned by her husband, she has as little capacity to believe in romance as she has to believe in the imagination. She brings up her daughter with appropriate rigour – cue a severe Maddison Thew, alternating with Emma Kennedy-Rose as Susan, whose childlike sense of wonder eventually wins out.
The greater leap of faith, however, is to believe Meredith Willson’s musical has much going for it. We should be grateful the show is based on George Seaton’s 1947 movie and not the insipid 1990s remake, but as musicals go, it is in the second division. With the exception of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, it has a forgettable and inconsequential score, while its blustery Broadway sense of humour distracts from the story’s essential seriousness. Nor is it helped by its sexual politics: maybe the first kiss between Doris and Stuart Reid’s Fred Gailey isn’t quite the assault it seems, but a song asserting a woman will always “forget her gloves” in her ditzy attempt to get ready reflects badly on the leading man.
Yet director Gemma Bodinetz’s hard-working cast hold on to their faith. They sing with enough gusto and dance with enough vigour to create, if not a miracle, then at least a good-hearted blast of festive cheer.
At the Playhouse, Liverpool, until 4 January.
