Meet Holly. A slightly annoying child who you can't help but have a soft spot for. She is part of a rather unusual family - her gran wears sparkly gold trainers and loves to dance and her mum married a loveable dog who likes to decorate the Christmas tree with sausages. Despite how odd this may seem, I smiled to myself on more than one occasion as I watched a scene being played out on stage that could have just as easily have been filmed in our house.
The scene is set in Holly's front room on Christmas eve. Holly is tired of being ignored by Santa - she doesn't want a new ipad or doll to play with this Christmas and has no desire for a new bike or scooter - all Holly wants for Christmas is to find her real dad.
Holly hatches an elaborate plan to hide out in her living room on Christmas Eve so she can catch Santa herself and can ask him to make her Christmas wish come true. Obviously though, things do not go to plan and complete chaos ensues. It is up to Holly to try and find a way out of this mess and with the help of Santa's son Bumblehole she tries to figure out what to do for the best.
Get Santa is wonderfully performed by the whole cast, however the standout performance for us was Holly's evil Russian teddybear performed by Scott Turnbull. The teddybear is brought to life when a spell goes horribly wrong and from that point he really does take centre stage. Turnbull does a magnificent job and we were completely sucked in by his performance. Although I knew I should hate Teddy (he was being very mean to Holly after all), he certainly had a special charm and I couldn't help but fall in love with him. In fact I wanted to take him home!
Get Santa contains lots of laughs with just the right amount of music and audience participation. As you would expect from a Northern Stage production, the staging is wonderful and the clever advent calendar set allows the stage to be used to it's best advantage. Your eyes will always have somewhere new to look.
We left Get Santa feeling very Christmassy indeed. We all sang the final song of the show together as we walked down the street to our car with a smile on all of our faces. Get Santa really is a lovely alternative to a traditional pantomime.
Get Santa continues at The Northern Stage until December 27th. Tickets are priced from £9.50 - £24. Family tickets are priced at £60 on selected performances. If you sign up to The Family Explorers Newsletter, you will receive a promotion code to buy a family ticket to see Get Santa for only £50, saving £10.
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