Ho-Ho-Ho: Upcoming Comic (or at Least Offbeat) Christmas Shows in NYC

By Troy Segal

You know The Nutcracker, The Radio City Christmas Spectacular and other traditional holiday fare forward and back. How about something a bit off the beaten reindeer path? As these upcoming comic performances in New York prove, there’s no law that says we can’t have a little irreverent fun with the holiday classics.

The 1960s TV cartoon special Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol—a musical version of the Dickens tale from the songwriting team behind Funny Girl—is being given a one-night-only live performance as a benefit for the Actors Fund on Dec. 15. Broadway heavy-hitters are involved this time ’round, too—stars like Douglas Sills (The Scarlet Pimpernel) and Tony Sheldon (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). If you prefer your Christmas Carol straight (i.e., without a little old myopic man as Scrooge), there’s also a dramatization of it, performed by Fordham College at Lincoln Center theatre students, dubbed A New York Christmas to Remember, Dec. 18.

Eric Idle and John Du Prez, those funny guys who created Spamalot a while back, are mining the Monty Python treasure trove again—and this time, the result is Not The Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy), based on the MP movie The Life of Brian. Backed by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, it’s a comic oratorio, says Idle—think of it as “Baroque ‘N’ Roll.” Dec. 15 & 16.

What will Santa say when he finds everybody swinging? That question (as bandleader Louis Prima famously sang) is answered in spades at the Big Band Holidays concert, performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Led by Wynton Marsalis, the orchestra serves up all the good old holiday standards in a syncopated style. Dec. 18-20.

Another orchestral institution—none other than the New York Philharmonic—loosens up at Yuletide, too, with the help of a pair of comic narrators who perform “The Night Before Christmas.” No doubt actress Whoopi Goldberg (on Dec. 19) and writer/correspondent Mo Rocca (Dec. 20) will find nuances in the poem that Clement Clarke Moore never dreamed of. It’s part of the annual Holidays with the Philharmonic concert, which also includes an audience sing-along.

A Charlie Brown Christmas turns 50 this year. A screening of that heartwarming classic at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is accompanied by a live trio, doing those ever-fresh Vince Guaraldi arrangements, and a choir. All can raise their voices in some carols, just like the Peanuts gang does, afterwards. Dec. 20 & 21.