It’s the time of the year when we abandon our critical faculties and discover our inner child, and you know what terrible taste children have. It is, in short, Advent, otherwise known as the Runup to Christmas, and it’s when we embrace the gaudy, the effusive and the sentimental in the way of popular entertainment. I’m thinking A Christmas Carol. I’m thinking Nutcracker. I’m thinking Paddington.
Now I once had lunch with Michael Bond, creator of Paddington, and you’ve never met anyone less like Santa Claus. He was reserved, clever and pleasant, but never looked like he was going to break into a ho, ho, ho. He gave me a present of Monsieur Pamplemousse, his French work, but that was as far as the handouts went. And yet his most famous creation has somehow managed to usurp the place normally reserved for panto in the programmes for the Festive Season, something suitable for all the family. Britain’s most famous illegal immigrant in his theatrical incarnation at the Savoy Theatre has managed to melt the hearts of even the crustiest theatre critics. “Paddington is here to scrape the cynicism from their hearts”, says The Standard’s critic, Tim Bano. “The Bear Captures our Hearts,” said The Times.
There is something about the Christmas story – the stuff of all the Nativity plays, the original Christmas production – which is all centred around baby Jesus, born in a stable, which makes grown ups feel that the right place for their hearts is on their sleeves
For we are in a mood to have our hearts captured. There is something about the Christmas story – the stuff of all the Nativity plays, the original Christmas production – which is all centred around baby Jesus, born in a stable, which makes grown ups feel that the right place for their hearts is on their sleeves. Paddington taps into all this. The original Bear was set up for emigration from his native Peru (it’s why Aunt Lucy taught him English) and the production relentlessly hammers home the Refugees Welcome aspect. But who could take exception to an arrival who is quite so polite:
“Seeing that something was expected of it the bear stood up and politely raised its hat, revealing two black ears. “Good afternoon,” it said, in a small, clear voice. “Er . . . good afternoon,” replied Mr Brown, doubtfully. There was a moment of silence. The bear looked at them enquiringly. “Can I help you? Mr Brown looked rather embarrassed. “Well . . . no. Er ... as a matter of fact, we were wondering if we could help you.”
The production milks all that soft heartedness for all it is worth, and as a production it’s worth millions. Shamelessly, adults as well as children wallow in it. And they go off into the West End afterwards with a nice big smile.
Then there’s Nutcracker, which got a critical pasting for its first outing, but has now been co-opted as the middle-class version of panto, without the filth. Tamara Rojo, after taking over at the English National Ballet, told me that she was surprised when she got to London that this was so very much part of the Christmas festivities, which it certainly isn’t in her native Spain.
Yet the whole thing is absolutely in the spirit of the season. It’s set on the feast of St Nicholas, who, as I hardly need remind you, is the original Santa Claus (say that out loud and you’ll see where the name comes from) and in the composer’s world, this was the children’s feast. And so Saint Nick does comes in person to hand out presents and it is one of those presents, the Nutcracker, who comes to life and defeats the powers of darkness, the Mouse King. In the incomprehensible world of the Land of Sweets (even back then Christmas equated to tooth rot), the wounded Nutcracker comes into his own, and Clara, the put upon sister, is the heroine of the hour. It’s that subversion of the natural order of things, the defeat of strength by weakness and goodness, that makes it so inutterably Christmassy. And whether you go to the Coliseum or Covent Garden, the magic of the production derives from the story.
And then there’s A Christmas Carol, whereby Charles Dickens practically invented Christmas as we know it – him and Prince Albert, with his tree. The sudden and dramatic conversion of Scrooge, the very embodiment of worldly cynicism, and the triumph of Tiny Tim is again the Christmas story in Victorian dress. The wisdom of the rich and powerful is brought to nothing.
And indeed, Scrooge’s nephew, sums it up:
“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open heir shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
And that’s exactly it. It’s why every rendition of A Christmas Carol, from the Dickens house Museum (always a goodie) to the Old Vic, leaves sensible people profoundly moved. Because this is the spirit of the season when we do put aside adult things, and embrace the shamelessly sentimental, the emotionally manipulative, because the Christmas story is itself about angels and shepherds and oxen and asses and a baby. It’s a time of year, the runup to the Great Day and beyond, when good taste and restraint don’t really have a place, unless it be Handel’s Messiah. Let’s embrace these productions because they really do embody the Spirit of Christmas Present.
