Reviewed by Talia Carlisle.

The tin­sel is untan­gled, the star per­fect­ly in place at the top of the tree. The only thing left is to make your way to BATS the­atre to watch Pōneke’s own Pāua Bal­lads total­ly f*ck Christ­mas up — their word not mine!

There are naughty elves and a secre­tive San­ta, squab­bling sib­lings and an abun­dance of beau­ti­ful­ly wrapped presents just wait­ing to be torn apart. It’s a Christ­mas unlike your favourite Christ­mas movie, with the added bonus that it’s all impro­vised by Wellington’s top musi­cal impro­vis­ers — their musi­cal bal­lads deli­cious­ly sprin­kled through­out. This is JINGLE ELVES: THE MUSICAL. pre­sent­ed by THE PĀUA BALLADS, on until Sat­ur­day so get your mer­ry selves there pron­to.

When I arrived on Wednes­day with a crowd of 14, the impro­vis­ers wel­comed us all into the the­atre with big grins and Christ­mas ban­ter — a greater wel­come than your own fam­i­ly could give, plus a bold Christ­mas crack­er of a song to start the show.

Com­e­dy roy­al­ty Megan Con­nol­ly and Wire­mu Tuhi­wai set the stakes high from the start, play­ing Santa’s elves Snow­ball and Pock­et, who have run away from home and aren’t afraid of a karate kid infused show-down. They’re not the only ones tempt­ed to run away from Christ­mas, I am sure.

Pōneke improv celebri­ties Mal­colm Mor­ri­son and Matt Hut­ton played dev­il­ish elf man­ag­er Fontaine (Mal­colm) and prep­py elf Sparkle (Matt) at odds over some dark hap­pen­ings going down at Santa’s work­shop.

Moral dilem­mas are rife through­out, with Bethany Miller as Christ­mas Star han­dling more than her share of dyna­mite on her first day work­ing for San­ta.

There are some fan­tas­tic one lin­ers for all our elf ears to enjoy such as “Morals are mal­leable”, and my favourite answer to “what‘s going on?” when you know you’re in trouble…which is “Rev­o­lu­tion, destruc­tion and burn­ing all of the things all of the time” —  which sum­maris­es the whole show to a TNT.

Glanc­ing at first across the fes­tive and sparkling set, I thought I saw Pāua Ballad’s Austin Har­ri­son sit­ting in Santa’s chair and beard, how­ev­er I must have been blind­ed by tin­sel. The wit­ty and tal­ent­ed Isaac Thomas is not to be under­es­ti­mat­ed as the wise and musi­cal sto­ic San­ta who brings the trou­ble­mak­ers back to what’s impor­tant at Christ­mas time — fear­ing dis­ap­point­ing your loved ones — or in this case San­ta.

The set and light­ing are stars on their own, with snowflake and “Mer­ry Christ­mas” pro­jec­tions, not to men­tion a sur­prise present each night for the impro­vis­ers to incor­po­rate — nev­er know­ing what to expect. Just like the audi­ence!

If you are after a relax­ing fam­i­ly friend­ly show sure to put you in the giv­ing spir­it of Christ­mas, you are in the wrong place, my friend. But if you are after some laughs, some chaos and clev­er­ness, all set in Santa’s work­shop now brought into the 21st cen­tu­ry — take a seat and a fire­crack­er and let’s get this dyna­mite spark­ing.