The live holiday show, O Christmas Tea, is stopping in Sarnia on its first tour of Ontario.
The Dec. 1 performance at Sarnia’s Imperial Theater is one of 31 stops on the tour by the British Columbia-based duo of Aaron Malkin and Alastair Knowles, known as James and Jamesy.
“We met working on a show in Vancouver and we realized that we loved working together,” said Malkin, who plays James. “We worked with a group of physical comedians and happened upon these characters.”
James and Jamesy “created kind of a world with an audience” and generated a response unlike any the two performers had experienced before, Malkin said.
After creating several shows with the characters, the duo staged the first version of the holiday show, O Christmas Tea, on Vancouver Island.
“The response was overwhelming,” Malkin said.
Malkin said the show “defies any genre that I know” but is often compared to British pantomime because of the opportunities for the audience to get involved, as well as its inclusion of song and dance.
“But I think at the heart it’s a physical comedy about friendship and imagination,” he said. “People compare it to Monty Python in its whimsicality, Mr. Bean in its absurdity (and) Dr. Seuss in its fantastical elements.”
Malkin said Jamesy is an eccentric character who doesn’t leave his “flat” in England. His only connection to the outside world is his friend, James, who comes for a weekly cup of tea.
James is more of a relatable “everyday kind of person” who lacks imagination while Jamesy’s imagination takes his friend out of his comfort zone.
“The two have something to learn from each other and, over the course of the show, there are elements that occur in conjunction with the audience that launch James and Jamesy into a fantastical adventure,” Malkin said.
Each year since its debut, the show’s tour has expanded to more and larger theatres, except for a pause in 2020 because of the pandemic.
“It has been a very exciting ride for us as performers to turn a hobby into our year-round career,” Malkin said.
“It’s like we are kids that get to play in a playground,” along with hundreds of folks in the audience, he said.
James and Jamesy shows have played the Edinburgh Fringe and off Broadway at the Soho Playhouse, as well as Florida and theaters in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, Malkin said.
“On the West Coast, where we’ve done the tour for the last six years, we have quite the following and for many people it has become a Christmas tradition,” he said. “Ontario doesn’t know it yet.”
But if the tour goes well, they hope to return to Ontario every few years “so it can be a tradition for those people too,” Malkin said.
“Doing the show is such a joy so we’re just excited to have people who want to join us in that adventure.”
Ticket information about the 7:30 pm show in Sarnia can be found online at www.imperialtheatre.net and from the box office, 519-344-7469.