Ghost of Christmases past
TOMMY STEELE? I thought he’d retired some time between Ronald Reagan’s election and the launch of the Sinclair C5. So it is a happy surprise to find him fronting the Palladium’s schmaltzy Christmas show, hobbling round the stage like Brendan Foster with a blister. Mr Steele is musical theatre’s answer to the Routemaster bus — Sir Cliff Richard and the Duracell bunny rolled into one. He evokes the age of Carnation Milk, black and white telly, the Reveille newspaper and Harold Wilson. A fact sheet from the show’s promoter discloses that Steele opened at the Palladium in Dick Whittington in December 1969, not long after some of us had got up early to watch the Moon landing before heading off to school. So how is the 68-year-old? Pretty frisky. Hair like Peter Stringfellow, skin as leathery as a tennis club pro, false front teeth that gleam like a luminous watch. But he’s full of vim, either turbocharging on Sanatogen or exuding the vitality of a natural optimist. The singing voice has lost some of its throttle and he keeps blinking, which is a bit distracting. Given that he’s playing decrepit Ebenezer Scrooge, these shortcomings do not much matter. The story is lifted loosely from A Christmas Carol. Scrooge says ‘Bah, humbug’ and a dear little Tiny Tim does his ‘Gawd bless us, every one’, but otherwise this is Dickens in nugget bites, Dickens as Frank Capra might have filmed it. The songs have titles such as Love While You Can and Make The Most Of The World. Mr Steele scrounges laughs out of the audience just as Scrooge lifts favours from his creditors. The large ensemble is competent and generally tuneful but there are no big stars to get in Tommy’s way. Listen to me. What a misanthrope! This is a likeable, harmless show, perfect for families, full of sugar lumps and moments that will make you sigh aaah! It’ll do fine for the holiday season. It’s maybe just a pity that a musical which preaches about the unimportance of money is the product, itself, of such naked commercialism.