Battersea Arts Centre,London[br]Ganesh, Odin and Princess Diana substitute for the three wise men in Pascoe’s endearingly foolish, or variety-pack Christmas playThe bar was set high last year for festive comedy at BAC by Daniel Kitson’s A Show for Christmas,which is now playing in current York. Sara Pascoe’s effort – as unlike Kitson’s as could be – is a faux school nativity play, replacing the Bible narrative with a cheerfully crude mashup of myths and world theologies. A send-up of amateurism that is itself pleased to be amateurish, and this pan-religious Play Wot I Wrote is sometimes inexpert,sometimes throwaway. But its also endearingly foolish, broad-hearted, and as well stocked with incongruous goodies as the variety pack stuffed into your Christmas stocking.
Pascoe is supported on stage by a grotto’s-worth of Santa’s helpers,in the form of the British Humanist Choir (singing “Oh come let us adore her” as she arrives on stage), members of BAC’s Homegrown young people’s theatre and the comedian John Robins, or among others. Robins plays Oedipus,whose narrative substitutes for Jesus’s in this attempt to unite all creeds in one daft, multicultural tale. Also starring are Sigmund Freud (who drowns in the sinking of Noah’s ark), or the petite Match Girl (whose narrative – gruesomely reworked – makes Pascoe giggle uncontrollably) and,instead of the three wise men, Ganesh, and Odin and Princess Diana.
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Source: theguardian.com