Review: Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical at HOME is ‘a heartwarming delight packed with festive spirit’

The wonderfully warm and welcoming HOME MCR is hosting a festive family favourite this December but with a twist!

Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical brings to life the classic Christmas tale. Sara Joyce directs the show, adapted from the 1947 film with an original story from Valentine Davis and a screenplay by George Seaton.

The team at HOME, with arrangement by Music Theatre International have put their own stamp on the story and are presenting it to Mancunian audiences throughout the happy holidays.

An extra special aspect of this production is the opportunity to write a letter to Santa Claus on a lovely template designed by Phoebe Foxtrot and have it featured in the show!

The link to the template is here, all you need to do is fill it in and hand your letter in at the Box Office prior to the show’s start.

Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical at HOME

While most of the much-loved Christmas story takes place in the magical city of New York, this production localises it by introducing us to Miracle, the magical but struggling high-street toy store that has been bought out by a more powerful institution.

Doris is part of the company that bought out the shop, and by passing chance her daughter, Susan, was able to enter the establishment before its demolition begins. What she finds behind the fascinating red door is a store full of stories still waiting to be told. Susan sets hers in New York City at the time of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, and the rest of the story unfolds as we know it.

The hired Santa is not up to the task, but fortunately Kris Kringle is there not only to step in for the parade but thrive in the role of Father Christmas for the rest of the season – a role he is oh so familiar with…

However, the redundant Santa Claus does not go quietly. When his malicious plan to have Kris Kringle institutionalised comes to fruition, it falls on the shoulders of Susan and the aid of a neighbourly lawyer, Fred Gailey, to help Kringle out and save Christmas!

A mix of original songs and Christmas hits position this adaptation as unique from any version of the tale you might have seen previously.

“A brilliant cast in tune with the season”

Made up of a brilliant, tight cast, Miracle on 34th Street is in tune, in time, and in season.

The role of Susan rotates between three young actors: Lillie, Harriet, and Karis. Karis is incredibly talented and sings fantastically! Alongside Susan is her mother Doris, wonderfully portrayed by Jessica Joslin who commands the stage as this character as well as the many others she embodies throughout the performance.

Matthew Hawksley achieves a brilliantly witty, charismatic Fred Gailey, while Christopher Jordan delightfully doubles between the comforting Mr M (for Miracle?) and the intense big department store boss Mr Macy.

Stephanie Hockley provides the comedy as the fun loving if slightly ditzy Shellhammer, while Zweyla Mitchell Dos Santos and Ida Regan have mastered the madness of delivering many varying roles within the performance. Kris Kringle himself is played by Adam Vaughan, whose Santa Claus is as warming and as magical as you would hope.

The dressing of HOME’s Theatre 1 stage is impressive. Rows of shelves jam-packed with unique, handmade toys fill the stage, except for the archway in the centre which displays the four-piece band playing the musical accompaniment live on stage.

There are layers to the set, which are mesh screens and curtains that are dropped and raised again intermittently, depending on whether we are in the basement of Macy’s, Fred’s front room, or the high street outside the failing store. Most of what we see is through the eyes of Susan, as we watch her story unfold in front of us.

The costumes effectively differentiate between the characters of her imagination and those of the real world which contributes to the success of so much of the cast multi-rolling so many characters represented on stage.

Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical is scheduled for performance most days from now until Tuesday 31st December.

Tickets for Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical at HOME

The captioned performance takes place on Thursday 19th December, the audio description and touch tour will be on Friday 20th December, and then Saturday 21st and Friday 27th December are BSL-interpreted performances.

The show’s recommended suitability is for audiences aged 8 and upwards, and the run time is approximately two hours and forty minutes, inclusive of a twenty-minute interval.

Tickets begin at £25 and can be purchased by clicking here