Plaid Tidings – Bridge House Theatre, London

It is not unknown for a company which does an all-year-round variety revue to perform a Christmas-themed variant. Think of The Rat Pack Live, where impersonators of Sinatra, Martin and Davis Jr shift into a Yuletide version of their routine, with perennial standards mixed in among seasonal favourites.

It’s a slightly harder sell for UK revivals of Plaid Tidingssuch as the one at Penge’s Bridge House Theatre. It is a Christmas sequel to Forever Plaid, an off-Broadway favourite about a fictional band of 1950s close-harmony crooners who, after being killed in a car accident, return from the afterlife for one final musical triumph.

In its original setting, writer (and original director) Stuart Ross had the advantage of cast continuity from his original production. That is far from the case here, where Plaid Tidingsbecomes a standalone Christmas production. The introduction, then, which sees the foursome return to Earth once more in ignorance of what their visit’s purpose might be, struggles to set the scene for those unfamiliar with the preceding show.

For those that do know the original – and with a 2016 revival at the then St James Theatre (now The Other Palace) there will surely be some in the audience who are familiar – there are some nods to the original show, such as performing with sink plungers in place of microphones, which must be baffling to the Plaid newbies.

But in short order, the plot contrivance becomes less important, giving way to the musical performances. There is something magical about male voices acting in close harmony, and director Guy Retallack has convened a quartet whose voices work exceptionally well together.

Joshua Da Costa’s Smudge offers a deep, resonant bass which roots the foursome, allowing Alex Bloomer’s mischievous Sparky and Kris Marc-Joseph’s vocally powerful Frankie to soar above him. Making up the four, Laurie Denman’s Jinx combines singing and comedy – and even the occasional sleight-of-hand – with onstage piano playing as the band’s musical director.

The repertoire, which starts out as the band’s traditional repertoire until divine intervention (in the cape of cryptic notes from Rosemary Clooney) persuades them to switch to Yuletide classics, is the real star of the show. There is even seem onstage handbell ringing for a resonant (and, thanks to some audience participation, hilarious) rendition of the Carol of the Bells.

But there is also a reliance on 1950s Americana that gets in the way of the show being completely a winner for British audiences. A singalong to an old recording of a Perry Como Christmas TV special passes muster, thanks to a great arrangement of ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ which mixes in themes from other seasonal favourites. But an extended skit satirising a Christmas edition of the Ed Sullivan show, featuring acrobats, dancing dogs, opera stars and European mouse puppetry might make more sense to a US audience than it does to South Londoners. One imagines that if American theatres were subject to a troupe reliving classic sketches from Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials, their audiences might be just as nonplussed.

But that short sequence aside, the stage’s gradual transformation into a full-blown Christmas special – complete with stockings hanging from the mantelpiece and wreaths on the door – is a great transition into this year’s holiday season. In this small (and overheated) theatre above a pub in Penge, it is indeed beginning to look a lot like Christmas.