Arts & Culture
Cornerstone Arts Centre near Didcot is the perfect festive destination for all the family this Christmas

Christmas is all wrapped up down at the Cornerstone Arts Centre near Didcot, with a packed programme of family fun awaiting you and the little ones. And the big kids too!

This year, Cornerstone have a wonderful Christmas show for all of the family: Emily Brown and the Thing.

Tall Stories (creators of The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale stage shows) are delighted to bring back their highly acclaimed production Emily Brown and the Thing, an imaginative adaptation of the much-loved book by the award-winning duo Cressida Cowell (author of How to Train Your Dragon) and Neal Layton.

Emily Brown and the Thing is one of a series of four books featuring the irrepressible Emily Brown. The show is suitable for children aged 3+ and their grown-ups.

It doesn’t get more Christmas-esque than Dickens’ tale of past, present and future, and Cornerstone Arts Centre will also be putting on TWO performances of A Christmas Carol this December, but aimed at very different audiences!

Although Old Scrooge is painted as the villain of the piece, I can’t help feeling a flicker of sympathy for the old goat.

So… he refuses to shell out his hard-earned cash for the charity chuggers who come knocking at his door - well we’ve all been there haven’t we?

Just because you’re wearing an ill-fitting top with ‘collection for the ill children’ printed on it doesn’t mean that your fiver is going to lift anyone out of poverty.

Surely it is enough that he is providing the means for people to help through providing steady employment? The cash that he stores in his counting house will surely trickle down to the lowest rungs in society at some point?

Let market forces solve all of society’s ills I say, after all, it’s worked wonderfully so far hasn’t it?

Make your own mind up with a double helping of Christmas Carol pudding at the Didcot Cornerstone Arts Centre this month.Living Spit Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol was a huge hit when it was published in 1843 at a time when the telling of ghost stories during the festive period was in vogue - and it came at a time when Victorians were debating the ills of society, the role of religion and morality.

It was the first public reading Charles Dickens gave of his own work. He enacted it over 150 times and the effect on the public was phenomenal.

On December 14, you can experience what it must have been like to be in the audience when the European Arts Company faithfully recreates Dickens’ famous performance of his best loved and most heart-warming story.

Or if you are looking for something a little different, you might want to see what is being described as a ‘feast of festive foolery’ by the Living Spit Theatre Company.

See Howard Coggins’ unique take on the eponymous anti-hero of Dickens’ festive masterpiece. He is joined on stage by Stu Mcloughlin who plays all of the other parts. Join the pair for silly songs, pitiful puppetry and Dickensian daftness.

A Christmas Carol by the European Arts Company is staged on Wednesday 14 December at 7pm. Tickets £15.

Living Spit presents A Christmas Carol is on Monday 19 December at 7:30pm Tickets £15.

For details see

www.cornerstone-arts.org

  • Cornerstone Arts Centre near Didcot is the perfect festive destination for all the family this Christmas