Dominic Ferris and Martin Milnes in Christmas Cracker at the Ambassadors Theatre, London. Picture: Samuel Black Photography
Christmas Cracker was performed by Dominic Ferris and Martin Milnes at the Ambassadors Theatre, London.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Ferris & Milnes are the latest in a long but thinning line of traditional music hall-style double acts to grace the British stage: Kitt & McConnell (previously Kitt & The Widow), Flanders & Swann, Mike & Bernie Winters (and Bernie & Leslie Crowther), Flanagan & Allen, and so on.
Indeed, their desire to carry the baton for old-school variety double-acts was made explicit during their one-off Christmas Cracker show that played at the Ambassadors Theatre this week, with a reference to them hoping to be the “new Morecambe and Wise”. An audacious ambition!
Christmas Cracker was Ferris & Milnes’ West End debut, if you discount their slot in the Hey, Old Friends! 75th birthday tribute to Stephen Sondheim in October last year. It was at this gala, in the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where they first came to the attention of a wide audience, and to much acclaim, with their dazzling ‘33 Sondheim Songs in 5 Minutes’ – a whistlestop tour through the works of the Broadway master. Either side of this guest appearance, the duo performed in cabaret, and this year took up residency at the St James Studio. This festive outing at the Ambassadors, however, can be considered their first full-scale West End appearance.
The high concept for Christmas Cracker was ‘show within a show’. The first act was set in Milnes’ living room, where he and Ferris are planning and rehearsing material for their upcoming West End debut. During this ‘rehearsal’ segment, hip-hopping carollers turn up and disrupt the pair, with the open-minded Ferris convincing stuffy old Milnes to open his heart and mind to contemporary musical styles and not remain obsessed with Gilbert & Sullivan.
The six hip-hoppers are invited to join the choir of Arts Ed six students, and Act II is the actual show itself, with the pair changed out of their tacky Christmas jumpers and into glittering velvet jackets.
Despite the atrociously (deliberately?) bad acting, fans of the peppy pair would not have been disappointed by Ferris’ virtuoso piano playing and Milnes’ trademark vocal hijinks. Both are exceptional musicians, complementing each other perfectly.
As it was their first West End outing, they can be forgiven their indulgences – Ferris, for instance, knocked out his version of ‘Rhapsody In Blue’, showing off his immaculate skill at the keyboard, and Milnes couldn’t resist treating us to his ‘other’ voice, which he uses to great effect in singing the soprano parts from Gilbert & Sullivan. With this kind of aptitude, no complaints from me.
Backing the boys were 12 students from Arts Ed – Matt Bartlett, Alex Cardall, Ollie Corbett, Charlie Ellerton, Tom Hopcroft, Julia Imbach, Charlotte Jaconelli, Hannah Grace Lawson, Grace McInerny, Clancy Jessica Ryan, Eleanor Walsh and Harry Winchester – who did a fabulous job in the Christmas choral numbers. Their unaccompanied ‘Carol of the Bells’ that opened Act II was particularly stirring, and I’d’ve liked to have heard more from them.
Indeed, it was in the second half that the show really took off and delivered what we’ve come to expect from Ferris & Milnes: frenetic, fast-paced execution and sparkling performances. The clunky and rather stiff first half seemed to involve a lot of padding and unnecessary exposition – about why there was a Steinway in Milnes’ living room, about his love for G&S, the merits or otherwise of rap (which was never resolved: we never did get a christmas rap in the second half) – and could’ve done with a heavy edit.
To be honest, I’d’ve been more than happy for there to be no conceit at all, rather than forcing this rather stiff script on them and us. The Ambassadors is intimate enough to warrant a cabaret-style show, and while I’m sure Ferris & Milnes strove to re-create the feel of a nostalgic and unashamedly cheesy Christmas TV special, I just found the ‘story’ off-putting.
So, the new Morecambe and Wise? No, probably not, at least not with their current script writers. But they’re every bit as talented, just in different ways. Hearing Ferris’ stunning piano rendition of ‘Autumn Leaves’, Milnes’ emotional ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ and the pair’s comic reduction of the entire West Side Story leaves you in no doubt they’re a theatrical force to be reckoned with. More in 2017, please, but perhaps with a little less cheese.
Craig Glenday
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