Christmas Carole

Suranne Jones strains to carry the dead weight of this poorly developed production.

Flaccid direction forces this compilation of cutting room takes into a limp adaptation where proven talent is given no opportunity to draw in the audience.

Nish Kumar successfully reinterprets a clichéd character to show the frustration it must feel, especially when it tries to be wordlessly enigmatic.

Jo Brand seems poorly rehearsed and largely jokeless.

The Morecambe and Wise duo has real spark and charm even where the jokes failed.

This show is a good example of the risk of writing jokes for comics who do exactly that for a living. They should be trusted to amend the script.

The clunky explanation at the end revealing motives undermined a nice twist.

It appears the script was put in the hands of the wrong producers.