The Great Christmas Feast – The Lost Estate, London

Writer and adapter: Adam Clifford

Director: Simon Pittman

Musical director and composer: Steffan Rees

 The Lost Estate’s immersive show, The Great Christmas Feast, is a real cracker. On entering the unfamiliar venue in West London, you find yourself in a well-curated little exhibition about the world of Charles Dickens in 1843, the year he wrote A Christmas Carol. If the extent to which he was then still struggling as a writer is overstated – he’d in fact already had great success with The Pickwick Papers and five other novels – it’s salutary to be reminded of the precarious nature of his childhood and of the state of crushing deprivation in which many of London’s poor were then living. Pins on a map of London indicate a shocking number of workhouses.

A Victorian front door opens, and we’re ushered into a large, cheerfully lit, holly-decked hall, where the drama is to take place. Gothic windows, piles of books and a Christmas tree all add to the cheer, as do the flickering lanterns that hang from the ceiling. There’s also an oil lamp on each dining table: for The Great Christmas Feast really is to be a feast, and we’ve each been assigned a place.

The menu itself is spectacular – no spoilers here – as is the list of period cocktails (Smoking Bishop is particularly cockle-warming). Hats off to head chef Rob Hallinan. The timing of the attentive waiting staff is immaculate, a fresh course served promptly in each interval.

The show itself, written and adapted by Adam Clifford, is tightly constructed. Of necessity, a lot of detail has to go, and we may at first feel we’re being rushed through the set-up in Scrooge’s office and the story of his early life. But Clifford rightly calms the action down for the heart of the story – Scrooge’s conversion and his joy in finding it’s Christmas Day, and he has a chance to right wrongs. The conceit of the show is that we’re all honoured guests of Dickens on a night he’s going to read us his new Christmas story. There may be a slight slippage between what we’ve been told of his circumstances in 1843 and the splendour of his house and the lavishness of the feast. But no matter. It’s Christmas after all.

Tama Phethean plays Dickens in this performance (David Alwyn and André Refig alternate). He also plays most of the other characters, slipping easily between the parts. He’s thoroughly engaging as the sparky author himself, but readily summons up all sorts of chilliness to play Scrooge and the ghosts by which Scrooge is haunted. It’s basically a one-man show, but as more and more characters emerge, we may well forget this. Nervous audience members may be glad to learn that the ‘immersive’ refers to the experience of the storytelling. We’re not going to get picked on to perform.

What is particularly commendable about this production is the music. Three musicians – Guy Button on violin, Charlotte Kaslin on cello and Beth Higham-Edwards as a versatile percussionist are all superb performers. The music itself by Steffan Rees is rich and varied, contributing powerfully to the atmosphere of a production where most things have to be suggested rather than be made visible. Ominous strings herald the arrival of the ghosts, while subtle variations on nineteenth-century carols make a genuinely affecting background. Towards the end, when it looks as if Tiny Tim will die, it’s a brilliant decision to adapt the sombre Coventry Carol for the purpose, grounding it in a melancholy drum beat. Higham-Edwards’ here and on the bodhran is captivating.

At first, the larkiness of Phethean’s Dickens and Clifford’s use of modern colloquialisms keep us at a distance from the story.  But as the plot deepens and darkens, Phethean is able to take his role seriously. In the familiar Christmas scenes, he is genuinely moving as the stricken Bob Cratchit. And his transformation as Scrooge is pure joy.

Runs until 4 January 2026