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Filmed at Pitlochry when a live show was prevented, Elizabeth Newman’s charming adventure channels star power to rescue festive spirit
Elizabeth Newman is the director who wouldn’t give up. Prevented by the pandemic from staging a Christmas show indoors, she opted instead for a promenade performance in the gardens adjacent to Pitlochry Festival theatre. Further prevented from staging any kind of live work, she adapted again. Now she has turned the set for The Magic of Christmas into a child-friendly art installation and committed the performance to film.
What we get on screen is a good-hearted 30-minute adventure in which two elves, played by Barbara Hockaday and Ali Watt, must retrieve the lost north star before Colin McCredie’s Santa takes to his sleigh and looks to the night sky to guide him. Clare Grogan as Mrs Claus takes them on an eccentric digression through a garden where she cultivates art from seed before offering them some good advice on how to retrieve the wandering star.