Written by Timothy X Atack; Directed by Tanuja Amarasuriya

Cast includes: Adam Peck, Joe Shire, Malcolm Hamilton, Jessica Macdonald, Timothy X Atack

A housing estate on the edge of some un-named northern city in Britain, late on Christmas eve: 9 year old Harry leaves his rundown home to find a dilapidated sled crash-landed at the end of the road, with dead and dying reindeer lying around the wreckage, and a scary-looking guy in oily rags trying to clean up the mess, finishing off the fatally wounded animals with a shotgun. Is this Santa? He certainly seems to have many gifts to deliver. But he speaks in an unidentifiable accent and doesn’t appear jolly in the slightest – and the only concession to a big white beard is some uneven stubble on his gaunt, sad face. Harry resolves to help this knackered, disillusioned man: to do a job Harry doesn’t understand, and to get to a place Harry doesn’t know.

It’s a sort of cracked fable in the mould of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. It’s a bedtime story, told by actors who’ll be reading to you in the dark, with an intricate and immensely detailed web of sound effects, played live like a musical instrument: footsteps on the snow, the wind on the moors, shotguns, petrol stations and sporadic violence.

Tickets are £10 (£7 concs) and you can get ‘em here

The Morpeth Carol is developed and produced through Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment programme.