Review: Moulin Scrooge, The Wardrobe Theatre – ‘Anarchic, ribald, rude and utterly hilarious’

Over the years, the classic ghost story/morality tale that is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas
Carol has been subject to thousands of theatrical interpretations, from an 1844 stage
production that appeared just weeks after the novella was published, to Bah, Humduck! A
Looney Tunes Christmas, and beyond.

Few, however, could possibly come close to Moulin Scrooge; an anarchic, ribald, rude and
utterly hilarious grotesquerie that mashes up the doom-laden original with high-kicking Baz
Luhrman burlesque, robbing dialogue from a wild collection of 90s popular culture while
unashamedly ripping the piss out of the seasonal favourite, and of Christmas itself.

It’s Christmas Eve, and a couple of disillusioned stars of the Moulin Rouge – impresario
Zidler (Kim Heron) and foul-mouthed Aussie dancer Satine (Emma Keaveney-Roys) – are
struggling to keep their theatre lit. Meanwhile, Ebeneezer Scrooge (Peter Baker) is bullying
the hell out of his naïve, downtrodden nephew Christian (Alice Lamb).

Several insane plot twists later, Scrooge ends up conning Zidler out of the theatre’s
ownership, following which he will turn it into “unaffordable housing”. The familiar ‘three
ghosts’ plan is hatched to bring Scrooge to his senses (or, as they promise, “to shit him up
while he’s in bed”), absinthe is administered and Scrooge is taken on a surreal journey
through his past.

This encompasses a fantastic range of characters, from Kermit The Frog (a nod, of course,
to the sublime Muppet Christmas Carol, starring a bemused Michael Caine) to Scrooge’s
mother as a scotch egg.

There are many, many great takes on the original, not least the part where Scrooge has the first sighting of Marley’s presence (“I reached my front door and I swear I saw his face on my knob”) to the hammy ghosts wailing and groaning, and eventually giving the game away. And also, the appearance of probably the best joke based around the C-word that I’ve ever heard.

The quartet playing all characters possess impeccable timing, juggling a string of
deliberately lame gags while subverting one cliched Christmas trope after another. If good
taste even dares to rear its head, it’s automatically bent out of shape, rendering the audience
weak with laughter from the beginning. We all know that Christmas is as much endured for
its crapness as it is enjoyed for its comforts, and it’s this knowledge that the cast play with
and tease out, to maximum effect.

If you’re in any way dubious about Christmas, and the words ‘it’s the most wonderful time of
the year’ make you even slightly nauseous, please go and see this show. Personally, I’d
even watch this on a boiling August afternoon, so that when some twat inevitably tells me,
‘It’s only four months til Christmas, you know!’, I’m happy in the knowledge that my seasonal
cynicism is already basting nicely.

 

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Moulin Scrooge is at The Wardrobe Theatre on November 21-January 17; times vary.  Tickets are available at www.thewardrobetheatre.com.

All photos: The Wardrobe Theatre / Front Room Theatre

Read next:

• ‘I have been laughing so much during rehearsals’: Peter Barker on playing Dickens’ most famous grouch in ‘Moulin Scrooge’
• The Wardrobe Theatre and Front Room Theatre join forces for Christmas mashup: ‘Moulin Scrooge’
• Review: Notting Hell: The Greatest Story in the Underworld, The Wardrobe Theatre – ‘As funny a show you could want in this world, or under it’