Preview: Mistletoes and Whiney Countdown to Christmas, Wardrobe Theatre

Open Attic Company (Much Ado About Puffin) and the Wardrobe Theatre (The Star Seekers) collaborate on Mistletoes and Whiney Countdown to Christmas, a mischievously fun new festive show for ages three to eight years and their families.

Mistletoes and Whiney are two of Christmas’ unseen helpers, making the magic happen to ensure everything is ready for the big day. Mistletoes loves December more than anything, but this year his cantankerous chum, Whiney, is fixed on making Christmas different. But just how far will Whiney dare to go to spice up her Christmas? And how long can Mistletoes play along before he is faced with the prospect of having to save Christmas Day itself?

Here’s co-director and performer Adam Fuller to tell us more:

Tell us how the show came together. Why a pair of Christmas helpers, one cheerful, the other cantankerous?
This is a story that had been fermenting in my head for a while and I think it might have started with an idea for the ending, which I can’t give away but I can say is definitely a lot of fun for the audience! I liked the idea of a story that allowed us to take a sideways look at Christmas through the two central characters’ very opposite approaches to it.

It allows us to go to extremes and question what it is that this time of year means for people. Neither character is right or wrong, and it’s up to us to feel for ourselves what is important and what is meaningful, taking a slice from each of the characters’ points of view.

Was it always obvious who was going to play Mistletoes and who Whiney, or could you imagine the roles reversed?
I think Adam and Katie both fit their roles perfectly and that’s why it was so easy to see them together this way round before we started. That’s not to say that they couldn’t swap, I think they’d each bring the other character to life in very exciting ways and it’s more about the way that they complement each other as performers that makes watching them so fun. In the R&D and rehearsals we certainly made some decisions about the development of each character that were surprising and relied on the input of everyone involved.  

Can you tell us a little about Whiney’s plans for a rather different Christmas?
Whiney comes back to prepare for Christmas with the simple desire of doing things a little bit differently this year. Not because she’s a troublemaker – more because she wants Mistletoes to see that you don’t have to do it the same every year to make it ‘Christmas’. She is trying to show Mistletoes that it’s the quality of what you do, and who you do it with, that makes this time of year fun and that it’s not about trying to recreate all the same Christmas things that we do every year.

Tell us about the synergy between Open Attic and the Wardrobe Theatre. Do you share a similar vision of theatre?
The Wardrobe Theatre have been so incredibly supportive of Open Attic in our fledgling year as a company. I think The Wardrobe knew us all as individual theatre makers who made work that shared a lot of The Wardrobe’s ideas about the live experience of an audience and our approach to humour. So as a company Open Attic had a clear spine from the outset and our work has felt absolutely at home in The Wardrobe and is inspired by the theatre’s own approach to presenting work. Our audience is encouraged to feel a part of the show and our desire is to make work that gently challenges, while giving people a genuinely good time.

What, for you, makes for a truly engaging children’s show?
I am a huge believer in family work being for families. There will be nearly as many adults coming to see the show as children and I want them to enjoy their experience as much as the children. If a family can go home having shared in the delight of a show and having had a genuinely good time together, they have enjoyed a shared experience that allows them all to take the same feeling home.

Family work should never patronise or assume anything of young people’s ability to engage. There has to be humour pitched at varying levels, right from the silly to the carefully constructed. There has to be a strong narrative to carry people along and that narrative needs to work as well visually – through set, movement, costume and characterisation – as it does through language. And of course you need a strong relationship with music in the show, and we have Sarah Moody’s brilliant work to thank for that in this show.

Mistletoes and Whiney Countdown to Christmas continues at the Wardrobe Theatre until Sunday, January 8. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/countdown-christmas