A Town Called Christmas review – merry mission to restore festive spirit

Playhouse, Sheffield
Elvi Piper’s show for over-threes has knockabout silliness, vintage styling, cracker jokes and appealing songs

‘Welcome to the happiest place on earth, kid,” snarls Tiny Tim, the caretaker who doesn’t care. Clementine has arrived in a fabled town called Christmas but instead of candy cane lanes she finds crumbled gingerbread, a malfunctioning robot and a shortfall of snow and joy. It was once Christmas every day here but now it’s perennial January. Even the trees are blue.

Thankfully, the newcomer is as zesty as she sounds. With a plan akin to the cheer-spreading finale of Elf, Clementine sets about generating enough festive spirit to restore the town’s glory.

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