Lyn's Picks: 7 Dec

Flight (Bridge Theatre, Thu 10 Dec - Sat 16 Jan)

First seen at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2017, this intriguing show delivered via headphones to an audience sitting in a wooden booth comes with natural social distancing in place. It’s a live theatre experience that is a cross between a peep show, a graphic novel and a diorama. Inspired by Caroline Brothers’ novel, Hinterland, it follows the travels of two young Afghani brothers across Europe as they plot their journey from Kabul to London. Created by Scottish Vox Motus this is a clever, heart-breaking piece of work that creates both intimacy and distance, and offers new perspectives and a fresh vision on an all too familiar story of refugees risking all for a new life. Good to see the Barbican and the Bridge joining forces for the London premiere of a show that may be small in scale but which looms large in the mind.

Zoo Motel (Online, Thu 10 Dec - Sat 30 Jan)

Apparently, Robert Lepage gave the thumbs up to this interactive digital one-man play created by Thaddeus Phillips with designer Steven Dufala. The latter worked worked with Geoff Sobelle on those two very distinctive hits, The Object Lesson and Home. The latter was a visual miracle. Every night an audience of 21 people can check into the mysterious Zoo Motel where they will experience strange events, and glimpse magic and illusion as a streamed play unfolds from a theatre cum film studio created in Phillips’ own home. The US press have called it weirdly enchanting and surreally beautiful. Both are sufficient to make me want to get my room key.

Thaddeus Phillips in Zoo Motel.

A Christmas Carol (at various theatres this month)

The country is full of Scrooges, and that includes Rishi Sunak, whose callous attitude to theatre freelancers, many of whom have fallen through the cracks of the SEISS scheme, is as tight as you can get. Dickens 1843 novella is being staged all over the country and on-line this Christmas with live versions in London this month at Bridge Theatre and Dominion Theatre (tiers willing) as well as being available on-line via Jermyn Street Theatre.

In recent years the Old Vic version, adapted by Jack Thorne and directed by Matthew Warchus, has become a fixture in The Cut at this time of the year. Like previous Old Vic: In Camera offerings, 2020 will see it being live-streamed from the Old Vic stage. There’s a nifty cast including Andrew Lincoln as Ebenezer, Clive Rowe as Fezziwig and Golda Rosheuvel as his missus.

*Cover photo: The company of A Christmas Carol at Dominion Theatre.

You can find hundreds of streaming theatre shows - many of them available for free - in our Streamdoor guide

And live theatre is back! Check out what else is opening in December here.