Get Santa!

Select a Date

Date	Time	Venue	Notes	Prices	Booking Link
Available Performances
Dates in December
Wed 1 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 2 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 3 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 4 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Mon 6 Dec 2010	1:30pm	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Tue 7 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 9 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 10 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 11 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Mon 13 Dec 2010	7:00pm	Press Night	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Tue 14 Dec 2010	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 15 Dec 2010	1:30pm	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 16 Dec 2010	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 16 Dec 2010	3:00pm	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 17 Dec 2010	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 18 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 18 Dec 2010	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Mon 20 Dec 2010	1:30pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Tue 21 Dec 2010	1:30pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Tue 21 Dec 2010	5:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 22 Dec 2010	1:30pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 22 Dec 2010	5:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 23 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 23 Dec 2010	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 24 Dec 2010	10:45am		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 29 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 29 Dec 2010	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 30 Dec 2010	1:30pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 31 Dec 2010	10:45am		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 31 Dec 2010	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Dates in January
Tue 4 Jan 2011	3:00pm	BSL Interpreted Performance, Captioned Performance, Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8. For captioned and BSL seats call 020
Tue 4 Jan 2011	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 6 Jan 2011	5:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 7 Jan 2011	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 8 Jan 2011	3:00pm	Audio Described Performance	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8. For described seats contact us.
Sat 8 Jan 2011	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Mon 10 Jan 2011	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Tue 11 Jan 2011	10:45am	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Wed 12 Jan 2011	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Thu 13 Jan 2011	1:30pm	Schools	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Fri 14 Jan 2011	7:00pm	BSL Interpreted Performance, Captioned Performance	Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8. For captioned/BSL seats contact us.
Sat 15 Jan 2011	3:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12 ;Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sat 15 Jan 2011	7:00pm		Jerwood Theatre Downstairs	Adults £25, £18, £12; Children (7+ only) £12.50, £10, £8
Sold out Performances

Reviews

4 stars Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard, December 14, 2010

Get Santa! is all we want for Christmas

It has taken the Royal Court more than five decades to produce its first family Christmas show, but writer/director Anthony Neilson has done his utmost to ensure that it was worth the wait.

The country’s premier new writing venue was hardly likely to proffer some slice of twee Victoriana, but eyebrows were raised at the choice of Neilson. Just what, ran the worried whispers, was the author of some determinedly adult dramas, covering topics including serial killers and child abuse, going to do to poor old Santa?

Have him star in a funny, energetic and refreshingly modern play that is destined to become a contemporary classic, is the heartening answer.

It’s Christmas Eve and 10-year-old Holly (adult actress Imogen Doel) has asked Santa for the same thing she requests every year: that he find her real Dad. Her Mum has remarried and, happy though Holly’s home is, it lacks the one thing she really wants.

So, she and her beloved teddy bear have hatched an elaborate plan: to “get” Santa (David Sterne) when he comes down the chimney and force him into action.

Unfortunately, neither Holly nor Teddy has banked on a bumbling elf named Bumblehole (Tom Godwin), or the influence of a rogue “animation spell” on the bear.

Neilson has done a huge number of things right here, but crucially he has centred his story on the poignant fact of a little girl wanting to make her broken family whole again. His lively production rings emotionally true throughout, meaning it gets away with the rather under-explained allegory of pleasant stepfather Bernard (Robert Stocks) being a talking dog.

If we didn’t warm to Holly herself, Get Santa! would be well and truly got, but 27-year-old Doel makes a theatrical debut of remarkable note. Dressed in a yellow and black jumper like a charismatic bumble bee, she buzzes around the stage, stinging the adults with the unwavering logic of a child and eventually learning some important life lessons in a pleasingly unsaccharine way.

It’s a pleasure to spend Christmas with Holly and her family. 4 stars Georgina Brown, Mail on sunday, december 19, 2010

Anthony Neilson writes what can be called ‘in-yer-face’ adult plays, which tend to make one look away in horror. However, this makes him a bold but also rather brilliant choice for a children’s Christmas show. For a while Get Santa! comes wrapped up as a present with a big red bow, it’s anything but your conventional seasonal fare. More of a surreal nightmare, in fact.

All Holly (engagingly stroppy Imogen Doel) wants for Christmas is to meet her real father. You see, her stepfather is a dog and he decorates the Christmas tree with bacon and, like most ten-year-olds, deep down Holly is rather conventional and would prefer her father to be a person and the Christmas tree to be festooned with chocolates.
So she hatches a cunning plan. She camps on the sofa on Christmas Eve and tips the crunchiest crisps she can find on to the carpet so that when Santa comes down the chimney she’ll wake up, catch him and make him lead her to her father.

Unfortunately for Holly, Santa’s elfin son, Bumblehole, is doing deliveries this particular Christmas Eve and even though he desperately wants to be the best Santa ever, he’s a bit of a novice when it comes to spells.

He brings Teddy to magical talking, walking life but (without giving to much away) this bear is no longer the cuddly creature he once was.
You might think that stealing Santa’s magic beard so Teddy can make everyday Christmas Day sounds like a great idea, but one of many valuable lessons Holly learns is that Christmas is only special because it happens just once every year.

She also discovers that having a boring dog for a stepfather may well be better than having a rakish ginger tom cat for a real dad.

Suffice to say that Neilson’s refreshingly subversive play is packed with goodies (as well as baddies), woolly jumpers, songs, satire, explosive special effects, flights of fancy and important reflections about selfishness, self-knowledge, parents and children. Festive fun for all the family. 4 stars Clare Allfree, Metro, december 20, 2010

There’s no chance of overdosing on Christmas sugar plums at the royal court: the tart, dark mind of writer/director Anthony Neilson subverts just about every festive mythology in this colourfully directed seasonal show. Each year, stroppy ten-year-old Holly writes to Santa asking to meet her dad for the first time, and each year Santa brings her boring presents instead. This year, she’s determined to take control by kidnapping Santa, only to end up with Santa’s incompetent son, Bumblehole, whose bungling magic turns Holly’s teddy bear into a talking megalomaniac. In order to keep the bear alive, Holly must ensure it’s Christmas every day – causing the adults to become half demented with festive fatigue and the world outside to grind to a halt.

As so often with Neilson, you fall through a trapdoor into a surreal universe: the set is completely cerise and Holly’s stepfather is a dog. It’s a pity the writing is a bit hammy compared to Neilson’s dazzling visual imagination; certainly the younger audience seemed to have no problem with the conceptual sophistication. But Imogen Doel’s outstanding Holly switches with innate comic timing between a tweeny Sid Vicious and a damaged little girl and, if the show is initially short on conventional wonder, it slowly oozes its own chilly enchantment.

4 stars Paul Taylor, The Independent, December 15, 2010

This reviewer once wrote that “Anthony Neilson and fun-for-all-the-family Christmas cheer go together about as amicably as the Val Doonican Songbook and Irvine Welsh.” Just consider Relocated, his last venture at the Royal Court, which chillingly raised the spectre of Josef Fritzl and his cellar of horrors. So Neilson is somewhat incongruous casting as author of this venue’s first ever Yuletide show for children. In the event, he’s turned up trumps with Get Santa!, a hilariously inventive and unconventional extravaganza which, with its time-warp antics, suggests that it’s a mercy Christmas comes but once a year.

Its heroine is Holly, a lippy, determined ten-year-old, beautifully portrayed in all her stroppiness and vulnerability by Imogen Doel. The one thing on her Christmas wish list is to find her real father, a desire that’s all the more understandable given that her stepdad is a dog. Each year Santa has failed to deliver, so this time she plots to trap him when he comes down the chimney. She winds up instead with his son and helper, Tom Godwin’s farcically hapless elf, Bumblehole. When a bungled spell brings to life Holly’s Teddy, the audience melts at the adorable spectacle (the excellent puppetry is by Chand Martinez). But talking Teddy is not entirely to be trusted and to keep him alive Holly is repeatedly forced to pluck magic hairs from Santa’s beard to reverse time and create a perpetually recurring Christmas.

The Groundhog Day horror of the situation (giving and receiving pile-ups of identical gifts in an ever blearier atmosphere of desperate merriment) is a hoot in the author’s vivid, stylish production which is itself designed like a huge, lurid pink present. Nick Powell’s musical score includes mock-heroically cheery jingles that parody the clichés of Christmas (sung by a chorus in ludicrously festive knitwear) and witty, gently moralising numbers which address the underlying issues, such as the need to respect human oddity and not think oneself the centre of the universe. The show is full of eccentric delights, from David Sterne’s grouchy Santa (who, on his reluctant way to Scotland, inquires “Is the body armour packed?”) to Robert Stocks’s endearingly canine step dad who dresses the Christmas tree with strips of meat because he can’t eat chocolate. Warmly recommended. 4 stars Sarah Hemming, Financial times, december 20, 2010

Teddy is evil, Santa is grumpy and the Christmas Tree is decorated with strings of sausages that sizzle gentle under the fairy lights. Welcome to Christmas, Anthony Neilson style. This is the state of affairs in Neilson’s seasonal play for children and if it sounds satirical and surreal it most certainly is. But it is also delightfully funny and touchingly hopeful: under all the absurd goings-on, the fundamental message is that love is what you need at Christmas.

The show neatly keeps faith with the Royal Court’s enthusiasm for quizzical portraits of domestic life. Here 10-year-old Holly opens the show by announcing that “Christmas is rubbish”. Her reason? Every year she asks Santa for just one present: her real Dad. Every year he fails to come up with the goods. So this year, she tells us, she plans to catch Santa and force him to oblige.

Her scheme goes awry, however, and she ends up not with Father Christmas in her Santa trap, but his gawky son, Bumblehole. One malfunction leads to another and soon Holly is stuck with an amnesiac Bumblehole, a wicked talking Teddy who claims to be her real Dad in disguise and a spell that enforces perpetual Christmas.

Domestic disarray: Imogen Doel and Tom Godwin bring anti-festive cheer
The plot is convoluted – rather too convoluted: there is a point in the second act at which the younger members of the audience start wriggling. And there are some elements that are too sardonic or bizarre: Holly’s stepfather is a dog and her real father turns out to be an alley cat, which, while making points about loyalty, seems overly elaborate.

But the delights more than compensate. There is a wacky inventiveness to the whole affair, directed by Neilson and laced with droll songs by Nick Powell, that appealed enormously to my nine-year-old companion. Tom Godwin is a joy as the spindly, slapstick-prone Bumblehole, while Imogen Doel, as Holly, combines feistiness and vulnerability. The whole cast revels in the nightmare of an endless succession of Christmas days. The adults stagger around in a haze of mulled wine, wrapping paper and enforced jollity to deliver useless gifts over and over again, while Santa’s Elves draft in emergency forces of Easter Bunnies and Tooth Fairies to keep up with demand. And behind all the antics lies a poignant tale about a child’s urge to heal a rift and remind us what really matters at Christmas. 4 stars Michael Coveney, What’s on Stage, December 14, 2010

Santa’s going to be kidnapped: the chimney’s blocked off and he’ll come through the skylight, fall in a pile of crunchy crisps, stick his head in a bucket, put his hand in the glue, swallow some whisky and get tangled up in the Christmas tree.

That’s the idea, anyway, in Anthony Neilson’s surreal seasonal nightmare, with songs and music by Nick Powell. Ten year-old Holly (Imogen Doel) wants her real dad back and she wants Santa to do something about it. Stuff the presents.

Her mum (Gabriel Quigley) has married a dog (Robert Stocks) – he really does have a waggly tail and a shiny nose, and he’s decorating the tree with strips of bacon. And Grandma (Amanda Hadingue) is putting a brave, carolling face on things, with the help of a close-harmony chorus in Santa hats and woolly jumpers.

This may not sound like your typical Royal Court play for Christmas or indeed any time; until you remember this venue’s historic association with writers like NF Simpson and Ken Campbell. Neilson certainly loosens a few stays, even in this catholic-minded regimen of Dominic Cooke.

The proscenium is wrapped in a huge red bow when you sit down, unravelling to reveal an all-red wall-papered set by Miriam Buether. Holly’s quest is helped, and then hindered, by a speaking teddy bear and Santa’s hopeless son, Bumblehole (delightfully played by Tom Godwin), who denies his inner elf and wants the reins to the reindeer himself.

The plot, involving plucked Santa hairs, paternal revelations and a gypsy curse, becomes a bit convoluted. But Neilson, directing his own play, creates a fantastically crazy scenario of repetitive Christmases where we are all locked into one continuous festive hell. It’s funny and disturbing because we know – or at least hope – it isn’t true. 3 stars Michael Billington, The Guardian, December 14, 2010

We don’t normally associate the Royal Court with seasonal jollity. Anthony Neilson, whose last work at this venue, Relocated, dealt with the abduction and abuse of children, is also not exactly famous for spreading gaiety and warmth. But, on this occasion, Neilson has come up with a weird, wild, highly inventive family show that both celebrates human oddity and satirically suggests that Christmas is fine as long it comes only once a year.

The story is co-credited to Neilson and Nick Powell, who wrote the music, and offers a reversal of expectations. Its heroine, Holly, is a tart-tongued 10-year-old whose only Christmas wish is to meet her real dad: a reasonable request since her stepfather is actually a dog. To achieve her goal, Holly plans to trap Santa as he comes down the chimney. Instead she finds herself lumbered with his incompetent son, Bumblehole, whose mangled magic endows her friendly teddy with the gift of speech. At which point the plot becomes extremely convoluted; but it’s enough to say that the talking teddy is not as nice as he seems and uses Holly to pluck a strand off Santa’s beard so that time stops and we all live in an eternal Christmas.

Even if the story is somewhat serpentine, Neilson neatly overturns the sentimental Christmas cliches. Santa, when we get to meet him, is tired and grumpy and especially dreads delivering to Scotland (“Is the body-armour packed?” he tetchily asks). A fluffy teddy bear turns out to be a malevolent hoaxer. And Neilson wrings every ounce of humour out of the despair of adults stuck in a time-warp Christmas and forced to give and receive the same presents day after day and live in a permanent state of comatose gluttony. Powell’s songs also pleasantly counterpoint the cynical tone by offering melodious homilies on the lines of “Don’t let anybody tell you who to love”. But, although the kids around me were having a whale of a time, I longed for a touch of the innocence and wonderment that you find in all the great children’s stories.

It is, however, all put across with great elan in Neilson’s production. Imogen Doel’s Holly is both prickly and oddly endearing in her flashes of vulnerability. Tom Godwin turns the sadly-named Bumblehole into a scraggy Dickensian eccentric with peroxided hair and a bilious green suit. David Sterne as the morose Santa, reminding us that it’s not a name but a title, and Robert Stocks as Holly’s canine stepfather give full-blooded performances and there’s some deft puppetry from Chand Martinez. Even if the show is a bit too knowing for my taste, it will doubtless appeal to sophisticated 7-year-olds and upwards under no illusions about the reality of Santa.