Elf
Dominion Theatre | ★★★★✩
There are Jews both in and behind this big seasonal show which started life on Broadway in 2010 and despite sometimes mixed reviews regularly returns to the West End.
It all started when Jewish screenwriter David Berenbaum wrote the first draft of his screenplay for the 2003 movie.
Jim Carrey was up for the title role until Will Ferrell landed the job.
But in this revival of Philip McKinley’s production, that you don’t miss Ferrell at all is down to the second Jew in this heartwarming Christmas tale of a hit that has seen producers rake it in from screen and stage versions.
His name is Simon Lipkin, a well-known yet underrated British musical theatre regular (also the star of the 2018 Nativity Rocks! movie), and he is just terrific in the decidedly un-elfin title role.
The immensely likeable Lipkin moves with a grace and agility that belies his size. He’s well supported by Georgina Castle’s New York ice queen Jovie, who somewhat inexplicably falls for this lummox’s guileless charm.
The show has a sickeningly schmaltzy backstory about a stowaway baby discovered by Santa in his sack, then raised by elves at the North Pole, whose ridiculous life journey we join as Lipkins’s now six-foot-something, big-boned
As Berenbaum once said, being Jewish never stopped him enjoying Christmas. And despite summoning all my cynical critical faculties, I found the same to be true of this show.
