The first ever Christmas show at Sadler’s Wells East opens with the world premiere of Ebony Scroogerunning from Wednesday 26 November – Sunday 4 January 2026. A brand-new adaptation and bold retelling of A Christmas Carol, blending hip hop, comedy and physical theatre, Ebony Scrooge is a ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company and Sadler’s Wells production.
Review by Stephen Gilchrist
I know I tend to gush over shows which I love and to bore my friends (and probably readers) silly, with my own theatrical history but, reminding you that I visited my first dance show, the ballet Swan Lake, sixty years ago this year, I can only say that ZooNation’s Ebony Scrooge is one of the most mesmerizing examples of this wonderful performing art form I have seen in many a year.
Making its world premiere at the stunning and spanking new theatre in London E20, this brilliant Danielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe creation is a described as an updated hip-hop version of ‘A Christmas Carol’. It is that, but so much more. She is lead director of ZooNation:The Kate Prince Company’s production which retells the tale for the Windrush generation. Scrooge is now a black mercenary. high fashion designer, exploiting her workers and coldly ignoring the warmth and comfort of family and friends as a response to the death of her parents and her sister in childbirth. She now has a niece ‘Freddy’ (Portia Oti) and a lovelorn Bob Cratchitt (Malachi Welch), one of her designers, who is rebuffed in his underlying love for her. And so the narrative is not quite what you may remember from Dickens’s 1843 novella but it is no less affecting in its character creation and Christmas message.
The show is fuelled by high energy, often amusing, acrobatic hip hop dance moves with tinges of jazz and contemporary dance featuring stylised, breaking, popping, and other examples of the counter culture and expressive hip hop movement.
This Scrooge (danced by Leah Hill, and who first appears as an imposing central figure dressed in an extravagant black and white costume a black top hat) is based in the Caribbean culture. Scrooge’s past, as replayed to her, is that of a loving family in the West Indies but by the time she arrives in the Uk after her family traumas she becomes a hardened capitalist living her life(literally) in monochrome fashion designs. And colour is important in this production and not just culturally. Her redemption is reflected in the transformation of her life and designs into a world of colour.
The extremely talented multicultural dancers bend, shape, and invert their bodies with dance moves you might think impossible if you were not seeing it in front of you, and all of it set against some wonderful designs by Jo Scotcher and lit by Charlie -Morgan Jones, where the overall aesthetic is modern, creating a vibrant world for this hip-hop-infused production, and with fabulously designed, stylish costumes by Natalie Price (who recently designed the costumes for Sadler’s Wells co-production Pete Townshend’s Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet which I also loved).
All of this is performed to an original and outstanding score composed by Michael ‘Micky J’ Asante which employs diverse styles, much hip hop of course, but also some mournful moments with a hint of disco and Afro-Caribbean fusion and with some of it sung to rap.
Every member of this company performs truly outstanding moves with an emphasis expression of character and pushing forward the narrative. This is truly an ensemble show, brilliant in its conception, immaculately produced and impeccable in its execution. The audience adored it, I loved it, and so, I think, will you and if Lecointe does not win an award this season for her choreography then I’m, well, Dame Margot Fonteyn!
Cast
Ebony Scrooge Leah Hill
Freddie / Past Portia Oti
Pre / Dee Liberty Greig
Sent / Tren Deavion Brown
Elijah Smith
Jackie Kibuka
Lindon Barr
Megan Ingram
Melissa Bravo
Robert Dunkley-Gyimah
Sia Gbamoi
Joanna Scotcher – set designer
Charlie Morgan Jones – lighting designer
Natalie Pryce – costume designer
Sarah Victoria – sound designer
Bradley Charles – associate director & choreographer
Shakara Brown – assistant choreographer & resident director
Lou Cope – dramaturg
Giulia Gallon – costume supervisor
Le Fil – associate costume designer & stylist (lead artwork)
Sadler’s Wells East, 8 Carpenters Road , London, E20 2AQ
https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/zoonation-ebony-scrooge/