War on christmas review – rough-edged anti-capitalist panto

If Naomi Klein had been drafted in to rewrite A Christmas Carol and Miracle on 34th Street as a brash alternative panto, it would come out looking like Gary McNair's War on Christmas.

But what's fascinating about this low-budget attempt to put a spoke in the wheels of capitalism is how powerfully we are in thrall to the Christmas spirit. However much McNair rails

against the season of high spending, he is repeatedly defeated by the season of goodwill. We're in a supermarket grotto in Possilpark, the Glasgow district best known for topping the

deprivation charts. This is where Brian James has been stationed as the resident Father Christmas, much as he'd rather be somewhere classier. More reluctant still is McNair's elf,

whose minor grievance at being pushed around by James develops into a full-on rage against the Christmas machine. Drafting in members of the audience to help, he subjects James to a series

of supernatural visitations to make him see the shame of social inequality and the folly of Christmas excess. Instead of the Ghost of Christmas Past, James suffers visions of a party at

David Cameron's mansion, a funny reprise of "patronising Better Together lady", and an animated flashback to his own troubled childhood. All this is done with tongue-in-cheek

charm, much fast-talking repartee and improbably vulgar yuletide songs. It's rough around the edges and could do with some directorial control, but the thrown-together aesthetic is a

good match for the end-of-the-line setting. Had McNair simply taken on capitalism, he might have triumphed. His mistake is to do battle with the forces of classic storytelling. Even if we

agree with his viewpoint, our hunger for a happy ending is too great to allow this Grinch to win. By the final community song, even he seems to have accepted defeat. _ _Until 28 December.

Box office: 0141-565 1000. Venue: Arches, Glasgow. _ _