“Feel free to make as much noise a possible,” whoops the narrator of this hip hop take on A Christmas Carol. We’re not in Covent Garden now. In this first festive show at Sadler’s Wells East, ZooNation choreographer Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe boots Dickens’ tale into modern London, her humbugging anti-hero a fashion designer with a heart closed to Christmas.
Ebony Scrooge makes her staff work on Christmas Day. Lecointe cunningly delays Ebony’s entrance, instead building her studio’s fug of monochrome anxiety. Michael Asante’s metronome beat keeps both nervous cutters and hypebeast sycophants in line. Ebony’s niece (Portia Oti in a fuzz of pink) is desperate for auntie’s love, while this story’s Bob Cratchit (Malachi Welch) is Ebony’s devoted assistant. This Bob doesn’t have a family, but he does have a catwalk-sized crush on his disdainful boss, and fluid moves to suit his overflowing imagination.
