Review: Stocking Fillers at the Royal Court Studio ***1/2

Upstairs, a swearier than usual Mr Scrooge is being taught the error of his ways by three mysterious ‘ghosts’.

Downstairs in the Royal Court Studio on the other hand, there are veteran fir tree fairies, megalomaniac elves, secret Santas, disastrous office parties and, above all, a reminder that this is the season of goodwill to all.

The annual Royal Court Stocking Fillers is a chance for some who attend the theatre’s writing groups during the year to showcase their work in succinct seasonal shorts, playlets if you like.

Seven of these Christmas-themed offerings are presented in turn over the course of just under two hours, performed by a core cast of four versatile actors - this year Carl Cockram, Julie Glover, Joe Cowin and Princess Kumalo.

With most of the mini plays hovering around the 10 to 15-minute mark, if you’re not feeling full of festive love for one, another will be along before you can say ‘would you like that mince pie warm?’

Christmas shows in Liverpool City Region this festive season

The show I caught was re-designated as the first Stocking Fillers relaxed performance, and it was thoughtfully framed, with the chance to learn more about the evening ahead of time, along with subdued lighting in the studio itself, toned down loud noises and – at the top – the cast coming on to introduce themselves and explain a bit about what we were about to see.

Which was a balanced collection of stories, albeit predominately comic or tragi-comic, which illuminated their writers’ wide range of influences and inspirations.

Ed Barrett’s The Badly Battered Bright Blue Bike, about a struggling couple trying to make it a special Christmas for their son, had a palpable sense of poignancy, although I’m not sure that suggesting that crime might sometimes pay after all is quite the right seasonal message to send!

Above: Princess Khumalo and Julie Glover in The Old Fairy. Top: Khumalo, Glover, Carl Cockram (centre) and Joe Cowin in A Nice, Old Fashioned, Family Crandlemas. Photos by AB Photography.

Barrett’s poignant tale was followed by a second in the form of Ed Connole’s Tommy and Jerry, a (mostly) two-hander set during the 1914 Christmas Truce in the trenches and echoing Andy Edwards’ Bombed Out Church sculpture, where Cockram’s Klaus and Cowin’s Tommy discovered there was more that united than divided them.

It offered food for thought but could risk a little tightening without losing anything.

Glover and Kumalo took centre stage in Liz Redwood’s The Old Fairy, an amusing generational clash and mediation on our throwaway society, while Sarah O’Hara’s Coffin Around the Christmas Tree, set at the work do from hell, was short and frenetically silly.

After the interval, Sinead Taylor’s Santa in the Wings pondered just how far we might go for love, and to find new purpose in life, while Nadine Jump’s Santa’s Little Helpers was particularly notable for Khumalo’s enjoyably wild turn as an ambitious and amoral elf in a grotto at Bootle Strand (juxtaposed by Glover’s weary, wine-swigging colleague).

Meanwhile the final short, A Nice, Old Fashioned, Family Crandlemas, saw writer David Elliott upend the Christmas story in a wry comedy which pitted religious zealotry in a tug-of-war against the importance of family.