A Christmas Carol(ish): Nick Mohammed’s Mr Swallow stages a perfectly imperfect panto
A Christmas Carol has been the UK’s seasonal show of choice for a few years now – this year, there’s ten productions in London alone.
Nick Mohammed’s gloriously foppish persona Mr Swallow is attempting to mount the 11th – but, as the cast explain at the top of this excellent show, they haven’t secured the rights from the Dickens Estate because the estate thinks Mr Swallow is rubbish.
What follows therefore is an attempt to mash up a tale of Santa cancelling Christmas with the three ghosts of Christmas, an insane visit to the maternity ward where Mary gives birth, and a few pantomime traditions affectionately crushed underfoot as the cast blunder through slapstick set pieces, surreal comedy and outrageous stunts.
Swallow himself is in his tenth year – his Edinburgh debut in Dracula puzzled and delighted the Fringe crowd with gags that were too hip to be entirely mainstream and too populist to be edgy. Indeed, he doesn’t quite fit into any neat comic type – there’s character comedy, little bits of Play That Goes Wrong fourth wall breaking, some pompously self-deluded Ernie Wise-style banter. He’s sampling from everything and thus created something unique. Through the years, the tone hasn’t changed. You could take both your broad minded grandma and precocious teens to this.
But Mohammed’s career and ambition have soared. There were plenty of American Ted Lasso fans in the audience (Mohammed plays Lasso’s assistant-cum-nemesis Nate), bemused by Brits in Christmas jumpers and reindeer antlers, and at one point Mohammed/Swallow/Santa/Scrooge wakes startled from his sleep with a cry of “I’ve been nominated for two Emmys”.
Has transatlantic success changed him? On first sight, the grandiose stage design might look like he’s splashing new money on old jokes, but every inch of the towering Heath Robinson stack of shelves, drawers, doors and conveyor belts has a purpose. Initially, it serves as Santa’s workshop but eventually it transforms into everything from lonely hospital rooms to a literal mountain in the spectacular final set piece.
The trained stage magician in Mohammed has always loved a finale, but Swallow’s best laughs come from the small and petty. With regulars David Elms and Kieran Hodgson as long-suffering Mr Goldsworth and intensely suffering Jonathan – plus, on loan from the Horrible Histories/Ghosts collective, Martha Howe-Douglas as Swallow’s old school friend and would-be Bonnie Tyler, Rochelle – the bickering, undermining and careless character assassination is sharp, witty, perfectly timed and absolutely serves the wider story.
This is a densely constructed and carefully arranged script where not a single line is wasted despite its apparent randomness. For instance, at one point, the ensemble try to persuade God that they should be on the guest list for the Bethlehem stable. At another, they launch on to a brief riff on Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer (“Rudolph. Like Rudolph Hess.” “Is that how you want me to play it?” “Absolutely not.”). Wonderfully, the latter conversation culminates in a full and beautiful rendition of Stille Nacht.
Swallow at Christmas is somehow perfect. Arch, knowing but ultimately sincere in the true panto tradition.
A Christmas Carol(ish) runs @sohoplace until Dec 31; sohoplace.org