Viv Hardwick discovers why Newcastle's Northern Stage seems to have cornered the market in festive entertainment for tots

SUSAN Mulholland decided to get herself in a grump this year, which might sound odd when she’s the creator of the North-East’s most popular Christmas entertainment for youngsters aged six and under.

It’s The Christmas Grump to give the Northern Stage show at Newcastle it’s proper title and performances, which started on November 15, are currently sold out until December 27 and it’s rare if there’s a spare seat during the entire run through to January 3.

“I’ve been to some dark places and then come back,” jokes Mulholland who has written the previous nine shows which pack out the small 160-seater space at Northern Stage’s appealing venue in the grounds of Newcastle University.

Inspired by Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol, Mulholland has simplified the story down for the youngest of theatre-goers turning Mr Scrooge into Mr Scratch (played by Michael Blair) the toyshop owner who has become miserable, mean and miserly. Three children provide grumpy Mr Scratch with lessons of how to be a better human being.

“We’ve had the full range of children in and, so far, they seem to be enjoying it. So, that’s nice and comforting. After nine years it is harder I guess because the show has such a strong reputation and loyal following that we don’t want to let people down. We also want to challenge ourselves and not just say, ‘Oh that’s the way it goes’, and keep doing that. We try to put out a Christmas story that people aren’t sick to death of. This year we really felt in a Christmassy mood and A Christmas Carol is the favourite story of Mark Calvert (director). He was in the Northern Stage version of the book a few years ago and it has that lovely structure of mean man, three things happen to him and he turns out for the good,” she says.

Mulholland agrees that the demand for tickets is quite incredible and reveals that she’s finding it difficult to supply her own family with seats.

“They come to me and say, ‘We’ll get in’, and I reply, ‘No you won’t, you’ve missed the boat’,” she says.

Mulholland feels there isn’t just one secret to producing such a popular show. “We’ve tried and tested a few things over the years, we know there are certain things that work and certain techniques. Audience participation is there for a reason rather than just a tokenistic approach and using songs to take the story forward and asking the children to genuinely help us. We have a crazy horse race where one half of the audience chases on character and the other half chases Mr Scratch.

Little children don’t understand the fourth wall of theatre. You don’t ignore them and cast them as characters sometimes and get them to help out.”

Director Mark Calvert also focuses on keeping the performances fresh because there are 75 to get through over the festive season.

“He constantly looks to find the fun in the performance. I have no idea what it’s like to do something twice a day for six weeks, but Mark works this magic so that the cast finds new things in the scenes and because the audience reacts differently I think that the cast feed off that so that it doesn’t feel flat and is full of energy. And a good story is really important and the message doesn’t have to be battering the audience over the head with an anti-consumerist tone. I might feel that, but three-year-olds are excited about Christmas,” she says.

Mulholland’s Mr Scratch only makes toys for adults who don’t play with them.

“The message is all about that it’s nice to play together and that’s what the kids try to do for Scratch. They tell him he’s forgotten about playing with toys and take him on adventures to show him. Hopefully, children will see that the occasion is not about toys, but the spirit of Christmas.”

Mulholland admits she did struggle with the redemption side of Scrooge and particularly with the part of the story where the character is shown his own death.

“I did like the idea of three children showing Scratch a facet of his personality and they hold a mirror up to his life. Instead of Tiny Tim we have Scratch’s daughter Katie (played by Alexandra Tahnee) who has to work every Christmas Day and finally ventures out for the first time. There are also some beautiful songs by Katie Doherty and one in particular made me cry the first time I heard it. So, that’s the Tiny Tim moment if you like,” she says.

The other two cast members are Ruth Johnson and Alice Blundell.

It turns out that the production team does have regular discussions about shifting the small-scale small child show to a bigger venue.

“I’m interested to see if other theatre companies around the country would be interested in our shows from a writer’s perspective. But it wouldn’t quite work if there was more. We get quite a big audience in an intimate space. I think if we moved it to Stage One and put tiny children in those big seats we’d lose something. Maybe we need a longer run.”

The Christmas Grump, northernstage.co.uk 0191-230-5151