This time of year, the GTA can feel flooded with versions of the classic Victorian tale A Christmas Carol. These holiday revivals usually ask us to admire their earnest polish — but this year, Knifefight Theatre wants us to trust their nerve. In 2025, the company suggests, the magic isn’t in merely re-telling Dickens. It’s in stress‑testing him: proving the story’s tensile strength by letting chaos collide with tradition. In this spirit, Invasion: A Christmas Carol (a collaboration with The Assembly Theatre and OneFourOne Collective) is the year’s most exuberant experiment: a faithful adaptation electrified by nightly disruption.
The premise is simple and ingenious. Six razor-sharp performers stage Dickens’ story of the ghost-abetted redemption of mean-spirited miser Ebenezer Scrooge. They perform it Victorian-England-style “straight” — complete with deep‑cut textual moments (for instance, the boy Ignorance and the girl Want, easily skipped, are here). But then a surprise guest invader crashes the narrative, and begins improvisationally folding themselves into Scrooge’s backstory, and gleefully derailing the classic story’s set pieces.
At the show I attended, Second City alum and Roll Player Kris Siddiqi swaggered in as leather-and-scarf-clad “DJ Daniel Denington,” a club impresario from somewhere delightfully east of plausibility. Busting out British colloquialism, improvised rhymes (and his own handheld microphone), “London’s hottest DJ” sought Scrooge’s support in setting up London’s greatest nightclub. Scrooge, we learned, was a fellow turntablist and aspiring DJ before becoming an avaricious lender. DJ Daniel Denington spun his sick beats into hilarious re-enactments of Scrooge’s schooldays, and into improvised present-day scenes, such as one where Mrs. Cratchit (Liz Johnston) was moved to freestyle a fat holiday rhyme, and several others where the cast spin the hilarious story of why his club promises free admission for ladies. Other nights have seen stars Andrew Phung and Colin Mochrie pop the lid off the toy box. Each night the invader (whose identity is not publicized in advance) changes, but the dare remains.
Two elements above all make that dare pay off. First, Jamie Cavanagh, who is the show’s director and plays Ebenezer Scrooge, is the production’s keystone. He gives us a fully realized Scrooge (the stoop, the gravel, the miserliness calcified into gait) that would not look out of place at the Shaw Festival. And when the invader lobs a comedic grenade his way, he pivots brilliantly and returns rasp-voiced fire that matches the premise: quick-witted, hilarious, always still in character. His Scrooge energy and expression are so great that, with arms akimbo and a long cry reminiscent of rollercoaster terror, they are all that is needed to cue credible jumps to Past, Present and Future.
The second key is Dewi Minden’s onstage music direction, which is the show’s invisible ligature. A piano throughline breathes beneath the scenes. Odd instrument-abetted timbres conjure spectres. And when the room suddenly needs an unexpected backbeat for a freestyle, it’s right there—adaptable, witty, and dramaturgically spot-on.
Surrounding these two MVP elements, the show’s low‑fi inventiveness is a joy. The approaches taken to bring the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and Tiny Tim to life are brilliantly pragmatic and utterly hilarious. And the ensemble—Tim Blair, Lucy Hill (also choreographer), Liz Johnston, Richard Lam, and Paloma Núñez—whip in and out of roles and realities with athletic wit, snapping between the core script and invader-required improv so cleanly that the join is invisible.
And all of this blooms inside the Assembly Theatre’s cozy confines, where the audience is close enough to feel the “Yes, and” turn from improvisational technique into a holiday ethos uniting cast and audience. When a toe‑tapping, classic‑rock‑inspired spin on a Christmas song breaks out, the entire room communes. And when catharsis arrives, it’s earned, magical and singular—unrepeatable by design.
Getting to the holidays can sometimes feel like logistics in a snowstorm. Invasion: A Christmas Carol argues for a different ritual: making space for surprise. In an age that optimizes everything, this show’s great gift is its inefficiency: its one-off improv laughter that detours and delights, yet reinforces and reminds.
Knifefight Theatre bills the show as “Toronto’s New Holiday Comedy Tradition”, and this sounds about right: because to stay alive, tradition must keep saying yes.
Knifefight Theatre ‘s Invasion: A Christmas Carol, produced in association with The Assembly Theatre and OneFourOne Collective, runs until December 14, 2025 at the Assembly Theatre. Production information and tickets are available at theassemblytheatre.com.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
