Review: The Great Christmas Feast (The Lost Estate)

Review by Daz Gale

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When it comes to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, it has become a real festive staple, with no shortage of ways to enjoy the story each and every year. One such way is the now traditional production of the story at the Old Vic (you can read my review of this year's offering here), but another newer version of the story is The Great Christmas Feast, returning for its 8th year at The Lost Estate's premises in Kensington. Having been inundated with adverts and posters for it in Christmases past, I was very keen to check it out and experience the magic for myself in some Christmas in the future. That fateful day has now arrived, but would this immersive dining experience be a feast for the senses, or leave me starving for more?

The premise of The Great Christmas Feast is that you are being welcomed into Charles Dickens’ home in 1843 as the first audience to hear his latest work, A Christmas Carol’.  In between Dickens’ reading out the story across three Acts, the guests are treated to a three-course meal, inspired by a Victorian menu, in this hybrid of dinner and theatre to create a similar experience.

The first thing to note is how beautifully designed the venue is. Effortlessly transporting you to Victorian England, lanterns adorned everywhere and the details in every corner of the room to resemble Dickens’ home is inspired, creating a beautiful aesthetic. The production value during the performance itself also impresses, with a striking use of lighting and some great effects, bringing a sense of quality to the evening.

Things start to fall apart when you look at them a bit more closely - though this has been running for eight years now and has had no shortage of amazing reviews in that time, perhaps something was off on the night I visited, or perhaps it was just an issue with my table, but I couldn’t help noticing what a flawed and problematic evening it was when it came to the elements surrounding the production, namely the meal itself.

What should have been a well-oiled machine felt chaotic and haphazard. Each guest being served their starter minutes after arrival, even if your whole party hadn’t arrived, is less than ideal and meant you end up eating alone - not a good start. From your starter, you are then waiting up to 90 minutes for your main, with the last table receiving theirs 30 minutes after the first, meaning you may be struggling to finish before Act 2 begins. This was impossible for pudding in the final Act, which people on my table had to attempt to eat in near darkness, as the show had already started. The service needs to be a lot slicker with a lot more training and attention to detail given to the timing of it all.

The evening also lacks something due to the servers not being in character at all. You should be transported into Charles Dickens’ Victorian world completely from the moment you enter the premises, so to have people milling around in character while others talk to you in a distinct modern way felt like a huge oversight, and one that loses any immersion or escapism you need for the success of this production. It is these oversights that stop The Great Christmas Feast from thriving. I should also note that the charming and helpful waitress who sat me at my table and said she would be with us all evening soon disappeared without a trace, leaving me to wonder if she had actually been the Ghost of Christmas Past.

The meal is a big selling point of The Great Christmas Feast, and surely a great justifier for the high price punters pay for tickets to this, though it is disappointing just how underwhelming and bland the food was. With small portions across three uneven courses, the word “feast” should be taken with a pinch of salt - funnily enough, something the meal was crying out for. I did question if any seasoning existed in Victorian times, only to have Dickens use some of it for the next Act, literally rubbing salt into the wound. Joking aside, I did not expect to leave something called The Great Christmas Feast still hungry, and with prices ranging from £139.50 to £279.50, it wouldn’t hurt them to have a bit of bread at the table, at least. I will say the cocktails fared much better, a highlight of the evening, though still not worth the high price.

Overall, the evening was incredibly poorly paced. With Act 1 finishing at 8pm and the main being served at 8.30pm, there was a lot of waiting around, and I did find myself feeling incredibly bored throughout. When something was happening, it was all well and good, but more should have been done to ensure the entertainment of everybody in attendance throughout. I visited The Great Christmas Feast two days after visiting another festive immersive dining experience, The Nutcracker Noir. Everything that experience got right, this one couldn’t match, and they would do well from studying exactly what makes that similar experience such a success and value for money.

David Alwyn is the sole cast member in this production, not only taking on Charles Dickens, but also becoming every character in ‘A Christmas Carol’ as he reads from the story. From Scrooge to the Ghosts to Tiny Tim, he delivers a charismatic turn that is incredibly enjoyable, though perhaps the use of modern swear words was slightly overused, losing the shock and funny factor fairly quickly. As Alwyn leaps around the entire venue, it does mean you may suffer from seriously restricted views unless you have plumped for the top price tickets. Something like this requires a sense of intimacy to feel really immersed, and there was such a lack of connection. I couldn’t have felt more distant from it if I tried. Bringing a few audience members up to read certain roles was a fun touch, though I felt second-hand embarrassment when everybody unanimously refused to join in on a dance scene.

Accompanied by three musicians who do a great job and are clearly talented, I struggled to see what this added to the evening, as it didn’t seem to flow or complement the story itself. A prolonged sequence at the show’s climax as the actor playing Charles Dickens slinked off without a goodbye, felt like a clear example of elements of this production that have been greatly misunderstood. Frustratingly, these are all quick fixes. There is clearly an incredible experience to be had in The Great Christmas Feast, but this was not it.

I may come across as a total Scrooge with this review, but I have to be honest, especially given the price of the tickets for this. While I am sure many present will disagree with this and will have had a good time themselves, I couldn’t overlook the significant flaws on the evening I attended. Though the premise and performance itself are decent enough, the underwhelming meal, disappointing service and lack of precision made this far from the smooth and sensational experience I was hoping for. The fact this is on its 8th year speaks for itself, and I can’t say how this year compares to the previous, but something is connecting in the way that it should. All these elements should work together much more cohesively - if you want to create an immersive experience, it is crucial to ensure the audience is actually immersed. I had been excited to finally attend this myself for quite some time, and the whole thing felt like a bit of a humbug, if I’m honest. Maybe I went in with high expectations, but this was far less of a feast and much more of a famine.

The Great Christmas Feast plays at The Lost Estate until 4th January. Tickets from https://christmasfeast.thelostestate.com/

Photos by Hanson Leatherby