★★★★

“playful, spectacular and touching”

One Christmas Eve, a young boy’s snowman comes to life and takes him on a journey to the North Pole. The Snowman is a transfixing dance show for all ages in celebration of visual storytelling and Christmas enchantment. In its 27th festive season at the Peacock Theatre, Birmingham Rep’s iconic Christmas show continues to awake childhood nostalgia and childlike wonder.

Take caution. You will have the feature song ‘Walking In The Air’ (Howard Blake) stuck in your head, but the kids love it and so will you! Have a mulled wine and tis the season.

Based on the book by Raymond Briggs and its 1982 film adaptation directed by Dianne Jackson, this performance uses clowning, masks, and ballet to bring the storybook adventure to life. Curtain up and we are introduced to a young boy who wakes up to the joyful discovery that it has snowed. He races outside to build a snowman where he is joined by processions of Christmas carollers and teenagers having snowball fights. This constant flow of familiar characters across the stage makes the world feel ‘real’ at the very top of the show, thus making the gradual reveal of ‘magic’ even more immersive.

The ballet is gorgeous (Robert North) and even more impressive when performed by dancers in giant animal costumes with crafted heads (Robert Allsop) reminding us of Disneyland characters. However, if you are afraid of clowns this might be one to skip. As the snowman is completed and comes to life, his stiff smile and black holes for eyes is slightly creepy. The continuous giggling of kids in the audience may say otherwise. Despite the mask, the snowman’s physicality presents him as a dumb but lovable animation sidekick. He moves with steady and heavy steps, acts the fool, makes fumbles but indulges the young boy’s requests – even stealing a motorcycle. He is Winnie-the-Pooh as a dancing snowman.

Ruari Murchison’s concave design of the stage’s proscenium frame reminds us of the Looney Tunes “That’s All Folks” closing screen, reinforcing the episodic structure of the performance. Each scene holds its own space as a sketch or cartoon which at times quickly overlap for a smooth transition, keeping you (and the kids) spellbound throughout the performance.

It is clear that under the superb direction of Bill Alexander, Birmingham Rep really took their time exploring how to best reimagine iconic moments from the 1982 film to the stage. A standout moment is the scene where the snowman discovers the light switch in the kitchen. Here, a five second moment in the film is transformed into a one-minute comedic transition between scenes that sees the snowman dancing to strobing lights. When we reach the North Pole, the stage adaptation delivers surprises to expand the story from the film. Not only do we meet Father Christmas, his reindeer and other enchanted snowmen, but also a snow queen and a mysterious deviant who might not be a friend to our darling snowman. A welcome pantomime twist that promises some laughs and suspense.

The stage version of The Snowman captures the essence of the animated film whilst making room for comedy, dance and story development with the addition of characters we recognise from other beloved Christmas tales or our own lives. At times playful, spectacular and touching, we are transported to a world that feels both familiar and wonderstruck. The Snowman is magic.

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes”

The saying (almost) goes, of all the unimportant things, sport is the most important.

One reason: sport is the lingua franca of male friendship, all those off-the-shelf metaphors and handy comparisons to fill in for intractable thoughts. Those ups, downs, bruises and heartbreaks. Computers talk in code, men channel life through the fluctuating fortunes of the team they follow.

In King James, we track Matt and Shawn on that journey.

First up, we’re in La Cave du Vin in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Shawn is here to do a deal for Matt’s precious tickets for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, the Cavs. This is 2004, the rookie season of local hero LeBron James and, even now, these cagey strangers sense he’s going to be an all-time great.

And he’s theirs.

What the two men don’t know yet is that they’re going to be yoked together serving in the court of King James for the next 12 years (we time-jump to 2010, 2014 and 2016) and their friendship will reflect the comings and goings of the basketball star.

The goings (as LeBron sensationally quits for Miami Heat) are a betrayal and a trauma; the comings (when he returns to end half a century of Cavs failure) are a time of euphoria. Unless you judge a man’s worth not by his impact but by his loyalty.

Loyalty is everything to Matt. He is fragile, hangdog out of choice, riding a mostly luckless life. He has aspirations but they don’t take him far. He’s over reliant on his careless privilege and indulgent parents.

Shawn is sharper round the edges, more purposeful, but that doesn’t mean he is destined to carve out prosperity. Shawn heads to New York and LA to pursue a writing career (mirroring the playwright’s own life). Meanwhile, in between moments of good fortune, Matt tends his parents’ dusty bric-a-brac shop.

Matt is white, and Shawn black, which doesn’t matter much until Matt lets slip what Shawn perceives as a slur.

In this delicate, conventional two-hander, the chemistry is bro-code standard – funny, deluded and nerdy. (LeBron better than Jordan? Discuss.)

The story marks out tiny gradations of disappointment, how life is a study in the futility and necessity of connection. Tension underpins everything – who’s winning, who’s losing. Under Alice Hamilton’s direction, Sam Mitchell (Matt) and Enyi Okoronkwo (Shawn) – both excellent – capture the tone and rhythm of the script with such elan, every exchange feels like a hand-wrapped gift.

Arguing over the origin of the word “fan”:

Matt: No, it’s for “fan” – like electric fan or something.

Shawn: Why would that be the case?

Matt: I dunno! Because we’re cool?

Award-winning playwright Rajiv Joseph is a Cleveland native and this one’s from the heart. His razor-sharp vignettes – slangy and real – are held together with the scar tissue of a veteran sports fan, full of pangs, longing, and the most dreaded thing of all – hope.

King James is a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes. Joseph captures these moments in all their delightful and infuriating folly and significance.

You don’t need to know basketball to love King James. You just need to know a man’s essential sorrow.

THE SNOWMAN at the Peacock Theatre

★★★★

“playful, spectacular and touching”

THE SNOWMAN at the Peacock Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd November 2024

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Previously reviewed at Sadler’s Wells venues:

THE SNOWMAN

THE SNOWMAN

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes”

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 21st November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Douet

Previously reviewed at this venue:

KING JAMES

KING JAMES