Miracle on 34th Street at HOME Manchester – review

Theatre and Christmas rely on the same small miracle: a willing suspension of disbelief. It’s especially surprising, then, that the heart of this festive show, Meredith Willson’s musical adaptation of A Miracle on 34th Street, is that rare thing: a child who doesn’t believe in Christmas at all. Or at least that’s how she begins.

The story sees that little girl, Susan, slowly conjure the intangible Christmas spirit and magic that people believe in. Sadly, the show fails to do the same. That quality fades like melting snow over its nearly three-hour running time, musty songs and plodding storylines.

Willson’s book tampers with the original plot. The main story takes place in New York, where a Macy’s Santa tries to convince a cynical family that he’s real, while rivals scheme to get him committed for insanity. But we’re transported back and forth by an unnecessary, clumsy framing device involving the owner of a similar store in the UK telling the Macy’s story to an identical girl.

Willson also introduces Susan’s mother and her neighbour Fred to each other long after he has found Susan and taken her around the toy store. His motivation seems unclear and even creepy – singing her gushing love letters – instead of them meeting after his familiarity has been established and the pair forming a compact to break through to the impassive mother. All sense of him rescuing the her wonderment, as much as the daughter’s, is lost.

But that’s also not helped by the lack of progression and development in the performances. Jessica Joslin’s Doris doesn’t soften, remaining matronly and like a rod, with a woodenness shared by many of the cast. As Kris Kringle, Adam Vaughan is considerably younger than either of the films’ incarnations (which include Richard Attenborough), lending him an ordinariness that supports the other characters’ incredulity at his insistent identification as Santa. Vaughan also has warmth, but lacks the twinkle and magnetism Kringle needs to convert the sceptical child.

Karis is sweet as Susan, but director Sara Joyce doesn’t help her move, leaving her to belt her numbers at us from standing positions, fixed to the floor. Both the songs and the script are overly earnest, with the little girl declaring “It must’ve been a dream” as she wakes up back in the UK, and her mother rejecting Christmas for making children “think of life as a fantasy rather than a reality”.

However, the brilliant design assists Karis in conveying awe and imagination. A gauze curtain lifts to reveal the grand store when she enters it for the first time. Lights glow as she turns the handle of a music box. Lara Booth’s costumes use a palette from classic children’s toys: the greens of dinosaurs; the navy blues and dark reds of nutcracker soldiers. Rusty browns complement the oxydised metallic glaze of Ciarán Bagnall’s set, like an old toybox. It’s lined with pockets of shelves storing toys, hinting at the way Doris has sequestered away her childhood innocence.

Equally stuffed is the particularly long first half, leaving the second to drag out Kringle’s court case. There are nice nods to the lunacy of the trial with the courtroom consisting of toy furniture, but the legal scenes feel far from festive. Where we might expect final snowfall, we get falling letters and envelopes. However you wrap it, it’s a disappointment.