THE CHRISTMAS THING
Seven Dials Playhouse
★★★★★
“a heartwarming celebration of the spirit of Christmas”
The Christmas Thing is a skit based on traditional TV variety shows. It’s entertainment with enough good-natured warmth to melt the heart of the biggest Grinch. This is brightly-coloured, ebullient comedy that’s ideal as your family festive theatre outing this year. Suitable for kids and teens, it will also charm elderly Morecambe & Wise fans. Part The Two Ronnies, part Muppet Show, it has a look and feel similar to Noel’s House Party.
Written, directed and performed by comedy duo Tom Clarkson and Owen Visser (with additional material from Dan Clarkson), the format is deliciously simple. You’re part of the studio audience for a live Christmas television special, complete with remote-controlled cameras, drumming robots, surprise guests, running gags, songs, Christmas games, and video sketches. Audience members become the star guests. Their participation is so expertly handled that it’s difficult tell whether “volunteers” are plants or remarkably game punters. Clarkson and Visser create a familial atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable playing along and where everyone’s silly, heart-warming talents are celebrated. In a world where we are reduced to consumers and observers, this show deserves full marks for encouraging the audience to be participants, joiners-in, have-a-goers and creatives.
Between song and dance numbers, Clarkson is the energetic host, whilst Visser works his technical magic upstage. The duo have risen with apparent ease to the technical challenges. Multimedia content is created and integrated into the show on the hoof. Audience-provided noises are remixed to produce the perfect sound effect at precisely the right moment. Somehow, it all comes together. By the end, it’s apparent that unlike most variety shows, the show has a compelling storyline.
The creative team delivers impressive work. Jack Garratt’s original music and Andy Chisholm’s musical direction provide festive sparkle, whilst Gus Melton’s video design and Bob Visser’s lighting transform the intimate Seven Dials space into a fully functioning TV studio. Multiple cameras beam audience members onto screens, creating moments that oscillate between laughter and good-natured embarrassment.
The staging evokes nostalgic mid-twentieth-century TV talk shows with bright colours, kitsch furniture, applause signs, and lots of retro gadgets. This is comedy on a limited budget that’s both very silly and very clever, combining finely-tuned craft with gleeful anarchy.
What makes The Christmas Thing special is its heart. This is a heartwarming celebration of the spirit of Christmas, capturing the joyful chaos of family gatherings and the magic of vintage festive television, executed using contemporary multi-media. There’s genuine warmth and nostalgia without sentimentality. The Christmas Thing is bonkers, nostalgic, and completely Christmassy.
THE CHRISTMAS THING
Seven Dials Playhouse
Reviewed on 3rd December 2025
by Elizabeth Botsford
Photography by Nia Visser
Previously reviewed at this venue:
DADDY’S FIRST GAY DATE | ★★★½ | October 2025
MONSTER | ★★★½ | September 2025
STORMS, MAYBE SNOW | ★ | September 2025
BLUE | ★★★★ | March 2024
