Review: The Great Gatsby, 41, Monkgate, and Christmas Carol: Office Party, The Basement

TWO contrasting parties form the immersive theatre experiences on offer in York this season.

On the one hand, "the honor would be entirely mine if you would attend my little party,” says ever lavish party American host Jay Gatsby, who has set up home at the Theatre@41, where Alexander Flanagan Wright's Guild of Misrule travelling players have returned for a second swell party season.

On the other hand, irreverent, ever independent York company Procter Goblins – specialists in "trashy, crude and often politically incorrect theatre" – have found a third, frankly nuttiest way to roast Charles Dickens's winter chestnut, A Christmas Carol, after a "straight" version and a second one performed by a troupe of Victorian actors.

Billed as a "unique festive event", it invites you to join the worst office party ever: no booze, no food, a funeral wake vibe as they remember newly departed Jake, a chronic alcoholic. The only "entertainment" is provided by John Makuch's Marty, who finds every excuse to roll out Wonderwall.

Each audience member is issued with a rudimentary sticky name tag for the night – I was Roy, although it never emerged why – as we joined Carl Bowstead's computer nerd Steve; Lee Gemmell's office grump Harold; Gemma Louise Keane's timid Charlotte; Ellie Webster's grouchy secretary Sue and Antony Branco's hapless, tactless but well meaning host Nathan, the office boss with the dreadful managerial slogans.

As the party runs aground and home truths run riot, they hit on the idea of enacting A Christmas Carol after finding a copy of the book, with the parts mirroring their office roles and personalities.

Gemmell's Harold is inevitably Scrooge (and not because Gemmell has played him before), and it is Harold's narrative that overlaps with Scrooge's path to redemption. Likewise, party organiser Nathan plays party host Fezziwig; Keane's timorous Charlotte is Cratchit.

Procter Goblins' show is loud, occasionally lewd and lairy, but Gemmell steers it to a poignant finale, and he and Keane make a decent fist of Fairytale Of New York.

The Great Gatsby director Alexander Flanagan Wright

and Meanwhile, over at 41 Monkgate, The Great Gatsby has settled in well once more on its third run in York, where it had its first fling at The Fleeting Arms and has since danced its way to Sheffield, Dublin, London, even Belgium and Castle Howard this summer.

This time Casey Jay Andrews has taken over as the designer – as well as playing Myrtle Wilson – bringing wonderful drapes into 41 Monkgate, and filling Gatsby's dressing room with a flotilla of shirts as she converts myriad rooms, large, not so large and small, into the Long Island palatial residence of the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Oliver Towse).

Adapted and directed by Wright, this fast-moving, fabulous show revolves around audience participation, with everyone invited to dress the part, dance the Charleston and move between set pieces in the John Cooper Studio and more intimate moments in other rooms, from Gatsby's office to Daisy Buchanan's (Amie Burns-Walker) bedroom.

Burns-Walker and choreographer Holly Beasley-Garrigan (playing sporty Jordan Baker) have been in the show from the start, and they form part of yet another excellent cast, this time with Hugh Stubbins as narrator Nick Carraway, actor-musician Tom Figgins as put-upon Gorge Wilson and York actor Toby Gordon, last seen in his home city as The Devil in the York Mystery Plays in the Minster, heading up from London to play the hot-headed polo player and rich cad Tom Buchanan.

Be bold, dance, make sure to latch on to as many scenes as possible outside the main theatre, and relish a most enjoyable night spent with F Scott Fitzgerald’s ironically unlikeable bunch.