A British pantomime is very different to the more modern Christmas plays that abound, especially around the Lower Mainland, at this time of year.
Pantomime is an English musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to join in, or sing along.
I am certain some of the audience was unaware of this when they chose their seats.
Having clarified that you will not get the expected Christmas play, you will, however, get a very talented twosome who call upon the audience to play numerous characters that enrich the spontaneity of the play.
A movement across the stage can take painfully slow minutes as each muscle in the Jamesy’s body stretches and contracts. He has full control over each and every muscle and bends his body like a Gumby doll. This slow movement is foreign to those who want a quick moving comedy. Especially when he is just setting up a tea set!
James and Jamesy’s Christmas tea party faces catastrophe when the world floods with tea!
This causes the two friends to leap into action, finding innovative and hilarious solutions to keep them and the audience afloat. James is much more serious and Jamesy is the ridiculously outrageous one, always using his body as part of the action.
If you are lucky or unlucky enough to look like a suitable character, you are forced into the play. We end up with a sea captain, the Queen, and animals amongst the mixture.
We move from Noah’s Ark to the Titanic, always at sea in the tea! It is difficult to tell how different the play would be if different people were chosen for the action.
For the audience, this moved between fear of being chosen to laughing uproariously at the unknown comics amongst us!
It was an enjoyable show that fits in with the British humour we have come to expect of Mr. Bean or Monty Python. One leaves with a smile on your face and a bounce in your step, still wondering if you could move with the slow, stealth of Jamesy.
James and Jamesy have received accolades and awards for their plays in a number of Fringe Festivals and have performed O Christmas Tea around the province and country.
It was $57 per sit anywhere, here in Cornwall, Ontario (16 Dec ’22), for an hour and a half nobody’s getting back. Monty Python should sue for having their reputation used to flog this uneven, unfunny, barely clever waste of stage. The “Fringe Festival” hype has got to be nonsense… it’s more likely a contender to headline a “Cringe Festival”.
Oh Christmas Tea(rs) might be a better name for this performance. I just spent an hour and a half painfully sitting through this play at the Royal Theater in Victoria after reading your nice review.
I found the act uncomfortably over acted and frankly not funny. There were odd miming scenes than stretched out for minutes on end with not even comic relief. I was anxiously awaiting the end after the opening scene.. as were most others in the audience.
The story did not flow well at all, and the songs went on for long too far.
People got up and left MID SHOW! The only good parts were the improv sections or when the audience joined.
Don’t waste your time on this show, please, it is nothing like Monty Python or a British comedy show. I wish someone had written an honest review for me to read.
Sorry you didn’t enjoy the performance. Oddly, the review you are commenting on was from 2019 and performed in Vancouver. I am unable to comment on a 2021 performance in Victoria.
Yes, i sat through the same performance. Torture! Hard to believe that they are at the Royal and charging for that….