A Christmas Carol

A cadaverous Scrooge, a menacing Marley's ghost, a poignant Tiny Tim - you'll find none of them in this musical adaptation of the Dickens classic by Susie McKenna and composer Steven Edis, the team behind Hackney Empire's riotously successful pantomimes. The action takes place in a haunted theatre closed for refurbishment, where two decorators - Gareth Hale, the cuddly, bearded half of former comedy duo Hale & Pace, and Simon Lipkin as his nephew Danny - are persuaded to perform the tale by a pair of puppets representing the resident theatre cat and mouse. That cutesy rodent later takes the role of Bob Cratchit's frail son, which is a fair indication of how seriously McKenna's production takes the novel's themes of suffering, social inequality and redemption.

A homeless man conveniently discovered dossing down among the dust-sheeted props, and two resting thesps who, for reasons unclear, happen to be passing, are also requisitioned to take part, and between them they offer a rendition of the story that, happily, still includes chunks of Dickens' text, but less happily constantly undercuts it with weak gags. There are a couple of decent phantoms - the Third Spirit is a towering, sinister, cowled creation - and some lusty singing. And Hale's Scrooge, though he's hardly the physical embodiment of pinched self-denial, suggests the journey from curmudgeon to capering avuncularity competently enough. But the remorseless larkiness is an irritant: more simplicity, and a great deal more sincerity, would have been a blessing.