A Child’s Christmas in Wales review – Dylan Thomas’s wonderful adaptation has magic in every scene | platform

DThis beautiful Christmas poem by Ilan Thomas has an amazing ability to slow down life. It is an ode to resting within, with its gently rumbling sentences and its shimmering memories of Christmases past. Emma Rice’s wonderful adaptation shares these qualities. There are only five players – a pianist and four actors – but they bring life to a series of characters. There’s a little magic in every scene, and they all glow with a Thomas-like mixture of hope and melancholy.

The band performs at the Emma Rice Company’s new home, a converted church in Frome. It’s small. The audience sits on plastic chairs – and perhaps this is just Thomas’s poem casting its spell on me – but the memory of group gatherings past seems to linger here. When they are encouraged to join in the chants, the audience responds quickly and with joy. We throw snowballs and socks at the actors and pass out family photos of the characters in the play, treating them as fondly as if they were our own.

The stage is supported by two giant wooden doors, with mostly adults inside and children outside. It’s a doll’s house, a chocolate box theater, and an advent calendar being opened. Inside sit uncles and aunts “like faded cups and saucers.” Outside, children are wandering around. In one scene, children walk through town in complete darkness and imagine dinosaurs wandering down the street. The delicious joy of being scared when you’re young and the relief of coming home (“Everything was right again”) radiate from this little stage.

The band shines. Tom Fox excels at clowning and distorting his face in every possible way. Narrator Katie Owen reads Thomas’s poem with such passion and clarity; Robyn Sinclair’s singing has a lovely vulnerability to it; Ian Ross’s songs flow gracefully through the entire production and Simon Oscarsson’s trumpet playing can almost stop time. It’s not perfect, and the framing style revolving around Thomas feels forced and unnecessary. But it’s not meant to be perfect. It’s Christmas: crazy, hard, and sometimes impossibly sad. Yet it’s still quite special, full of love, music and unforgettable moments.