Preview: Toy Show The Musical has perfect recipe to become an instant Christmas classic

Toy Show The Musical turns the narrative back on the families who watch the show each year and it has a joyous Matilda vibe

Clare Keely (12), from Craigavon, Co Armagh, who plays the lead roll of Nell in Toy Show the Musical, with DJ Calum Kieran at a special press preview. Picture: Andres Poveda

We all know that the RTÉ Toy Show is an Irish institution - one that signifies the start of Christmas for families at home and abroad - so how do you translate an iconic television show that strikes the perfect balance between the joyful and the serious to a theatre stage? Just like making a Christmas cake, it’s about having a great recipe, all the correct ingredients, just the right balance and a little sprinkling of magic.

This seasoned hack found herself with a tear in her eye at the launch of Toy Show The Musical in Croke Park today where the multi-part cast (including 36 children) is in their third week of rehearsal for what looks set to be one of the best live shows for people of all ages this festive season.

The resounding opening number has a joyous Matilda vibe which lovers of musical theatre will no doubt read as a compliment. To use the Christmas cake analogy, the perfect recipe is the storyline dreamed up over the course of three years by RTÉ producers, and Toy Show The Musical executive producers, Jane Murphy and Katherine Drohan, who have worked on the Late Late Toy Show for many years.

Cast member Joseph Dunne getting a first look at a model of the stage. Picture: Andres Poveda

But don’t arrive at Dublin’s Convention Centre expecting to see frenetic toy reviews or Ryan Tubridy making an eejit of himself. Rather, Toy Show The Musical turns the narrative back on the families who watch the show each year via a distinctly Irish piece of musical theatre where the redemptive story of a young family comes wrapped in a Toy Show narrative and tied up with a yuletide bow.

The heart-warming fictional story, set on Tricycle Street, tells the tale of 12 year old Nell Mooney who is determined to recreate the magic of her mother’s Toy Show night traditions. Since her mother’s death, Nell’s dad, played by Jamie Beamish (Bridgerton, Derry Girls, Otto, Billy The Kid) has been struggling and doesn’t want to remember the past. 

The story, just like the annual TV show often does, takes the audience on an emotional journey with all its peaks and troughs, comedy and pathos as disaster strikes, and, with Toy Show night in jeopardy, Nell and her friends must find a way to keep the magic alive.

The ingredients list for this particular Christmas treat includes a cast led by accomplished Irish director Séimí Campbell, whose recent work includes directing Jason Robert Brown’s Songs For A New World at the London Palladium and Gary Barlow’s one man show A Different Stage. Clare Barrett (Fair City, Medicine, Wild Mountain Thyme, Trad) plays Nell’s mother Áine, while the role of Nan is played by Anna Healy (The Spin, The Last Return, Mother’s Day and Emmerdale).

Toy Show the Musical Director Séimí Campbell. Picture Andres Poveda

Combine this with Tony award-winning orchestrator Sarah Travis and talented names such as playwright Lisa Tierney Keogh and composers Ruth-Anne Cunningham and Harry Blake and you know you’re in for a Christmas cracker.

The stage of the Convention Centre has been transformed by world class costume and set designer, Antrim-native Colin Richmond, whose lengthy CV reads like a what’s what of television, theatre, ballet and opera. 

Playing with scale, the stage depicts a world of play - it’s a town but also a home and a playroom - a magical world where, for one night, children get to be in charge and adults are allowed to rediscover the magic of childhood again. 

The show acknowledges that Christmas is not an easy time for everyone, but it is also resolute about the healing power of magic and belief.

Putting on an original Irish musical theatre show of this magnitude may be a risk for RTÉ, but if the integrity and talent of this cast and crew is anything to go by even the most diehard fans of the Toy Show will leave the theatre with a glow in their hearts. 

Featuring some of Ireland’s best up-and-coming young talent, including Ceola Dunne, Clare Keely and Doireann McNally in the role of Nell, if you don’t enjoy it I’ll eat my (Santa) hat.

• Toy Show the Musical opens on December 10th at The Convention Centre, Dublin. There will be several ISL-signed and sensory-friendly performances and all shows have dedicated wheelchair spaces. Tickets from €25. For further information and to purchase tickets go to www.rte.ie/toyshowthemusical