THE NUTCRACKER

The North Wall

★★★★

“newcomers of all ages will enjoy this playful and imaginative production”

Creation Theatre’s alternative version of The Nutcracker trades point shoes and pas de deux for plot, characters and a hark back to a wonderfully odd German tale written by E.T.A Hoffmann nearly two centuries ago. Rather than relying on classical ballet and a sweeping score, this production (written and directed by Helen Eastman) leans fully into storytelling giving the familiar characters new depth and transforming the whimsical world of The Nutcracker into something more vivid and emotionally resonant with a touch of ‘Toy Story’ thrown in.

At its heart is Marie (played with childish wonder by Hayley Murray) a perceptive little girl who sees things that adults cannot. It is Christmas Eve and Marie and her annoying brother Fritz are helping their mother (Asha Cornelia Cluer who also plays Clara and the twinkly Sugar Plum Fairy) to decorate the Christmas tree. All three have a very different perception of what a perfect Christmas should be. We see the fraught Christmas of her mother trying frantically to juggle everything before the big day, Fritz taking delight in tormenting his sister and timid Marie who just wants her mother to listen to her and is happy for them all to just be together. Their eccentric Uncle Drosselmeyer pays them a visit and gives Marie a toy nutcracker (a marvellously wooden performance by Clark Alexander who also plays Drosselmeyer) as a Christmas present. When The Nutcracker and her favourite toy Clara later come alive to wage war against the fiendish Mouse King, whose subjects have taken up residence in her house, she is drawn into a surreal hidden world of sweets, mice and the Sugar Plum Fairy. Here she finds her confidence and discovers her own superpowers – kindness, friendship, loyalty and some very useful yet appalling recorder playing!

The Mouse King (played by Andy Owens who also plays Fritz) is a kind of gangster rapper baddie who has a delightfully witty scene of cleverly rephrased Shakespearean quotes ‘a plague on both your mouses’, ‘friends, rodents, countrymen…’ which helps to pick up the pace in the second half along with a hilarious battle scene involving brussels sprouts. The children, who are all part of Creation Theatre’s education programme that reaches hundreds of children annually through weekly drama clubs and holiday workshops, play the mice and various sweets and sing along to the catchy original songs by composer Patrick Stockbridge. They even serenade us with carols in the foyer – what a lovely touch.

The adaptable set (David Spence) is a jauntily angled classic living room with candy striped walls, hung with the odd masterpiece and a black and white liquorice allsorts floor. Drosselmeyer peers down at the action through the lath and plaster ceiling bursting with clock mechanisms reflecting the style of the pre Victorian era in which it was written.

Modern ballets ignore the tale within a tale which is acted out in this production and explains The Nutcracker’s enchantment. The original story hints that beneath all the Christmas sparkle lies something darker than the sugar-coated story this has become over the years. Long time fans of the original will appreciate the respectful nods to tradition while newcomers of all ages will enjoy this playful and imaginative production of The Nutcracker.

THE NUTCRACKER

The North Wall

Reviewed on 6th December 2025

by Sarah Milton

Photography by Geraint Lewis

THE NUTCRACKER

Romeo and Juliet

Online via creationtheatre.co.uk

Reviewed – 16th May 2021

★★★½

“an intriguing adaption and a creative and unique piece of digital theatre”

Two households, both alike in dignity. Those famous lines are how Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedy usually begins. Except in this interactive online version, I find myself on a Zoom call alongside a great many households, watching live as the fight kicks off between the two feuding families.

One of the key selling points of this fun and fresh reinvention of a much-loved classic is the interactive element – where the audience can make decisions about the characters’ fates. For my first choice, I have chosen to be a Montague, and so I begin the play witnessing the initial street brawl between the two sides and then dashing off to see Romeo (Kofi Dennis), Mercutio (Dharmesh Patel) and Benvolio (Harmony Rose Bremner) preparing for their night at the Capulets.

How to stage a play on Zoom is a question many theatre companies have grappled with over the past year and designer Ryan Dawson Laight and director Natasha Rickman have come up with a worthy and bold solution. Performing individually, the actors swim onto brightly-coloured ghostly backgrounds, where characters overlap each other and become both big and small. After a short adjustment period, it soon becomes immersive – an ethereal and inviting experience.

As we enter the party and meet the Capulets, the story moves swiftly on to another Zoom call, where our hero meets his Juliet (Annabelle Terry), but is also pursued by the watching eyes of Tybalt (Sebastian Capitan Viveros) and Lord Capulet (Graeme Rose), setting the familiar chain of events in motion.

Then it is back to the company’s website, where the choice-making element of the production truly begins, interspersed with pre-recorded scenes. As well as the decisions – laid out on tarot cards – there are also valiant attempts to engage with the Zoom audience and to add a bit of personalisation to the performance. These additional bits are interesting, but it is hard to add very much new material to such a well-trodden story and I am often unsure how much impact each decision I make has.

I hope it is not a spoiler to say that, despite my choices and the combined efforts of Sister Lauren (Clare Humphrey, as a gender-swapped Friar Lawrence) and the nurse (Katy Stephens), I do not manage to save the star-crossed lovers. But there are hints throughout the production that a more discerning viewer might be able to…

Along with the staging, the combined efforts of music and sound (Matt Eaton) and movement and choreography (Simon Pittman) work well for the fight and dance scenes, but perhaps less so for the love scenes. The actors largely adapt happily to the digital realm, with some stand-out performances. Kofi Dennis as Romeo is particularly good, embodying all the angst and passion you would expect from the young hero. And Dharmesh Patel brings an ominous, almost-creepy air to Mercutio that works surprisingly well. Support from the rest of the cast (Giles Stoakley, Vera Chok, Viss Elliot Safavi, Lola Boulter and Andy Owens) also adds depth to the performance.

Tag Archives: Andy Owens

THE NUTCRACKER

★★★★

The North Wall

THE NUTCRACKER

The North Wall

★★★★

“newcomers of all ages will enjoy this playful and imaginative production”