Performance: Nuncrackers

Bruce Mason Theatre

Review: Susan Budd


Christmas seems to come earlier every year and now comes great family entertainment with Nuncrackers. It is chock full of Christmas carols and it is corny, sentimental and silly. It is also hugely enjoyable.

Loosely constructed round the disasters attending the televising of a talent quest in St Helen's Convent, Nuncrackers is a collection of songs and sketches performed with artistry and good humour by its talented cast of seasoned professional actors and cute children.

Ross Jolly's production is simple, effective and unpretentious, trusting his players to perform with verve.

Helen Moulder, better known for thoughtful and searing dramatic roles, plays the Reverend Mother with gently roguish Irish charm.

Whether sitting for a fireplace chat to sell mail-order Catholic oddities (such as slightly electrified tinsel halos for recalcitrant domestic angels) or performing a top hat and cane number, she is in quiet but firm control of the stage.

Mabel Faletolu plays Sister Robert Anne with great comic attitude and a fantastic voice that is as powerful operatically as with the blues. She also has the audience snuffling at the sad tale of a child's fatherless Christmas.

As Sister Amnesia, Lucy Schmidt does a great ventriloquist act with a glove puppet and belts out a country and western song with a yodelling finale that the Topp Twins would die for.

Attired as Sister Jo Seager, Jeff Kingsford-Brown, the priest of the piece, gives a memorable cooking lesson in which rum plays a large part. It brought the house down.

In the most underwritten role of Sister Mary Hubert, Darien Takle has the opportunity to shine with some great musical numbers. Under the stewardship of Sarah Goddard, Simon Johnson, Elle Harris and Philip Kim are so cute in their punning scenes based on mishearing the words of carols.