REVIEW | EBONY SCROOGE — ZOONATION AT SADLER’S WELLS EAST

Ebony Scrooge is the latest—and first-ever festive—production by ZooN­a­tion, cur­rently gra­cing the stage at Sadler’s Wells East Theatre in Strat­ford. Asso­ci­ate Artist­ic Dir­ect­or Dan­ni­elle “Rhimes” Lecointe’s debut main­stage pro­duc­tion is a per­son­al touch­ing and cap­tiv­at­ing rework­ing using the found­a­tion of Charles Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol. The show has quickly become the talk of the town, with tick­ets fly­ing like Santa’s sleigh on Christ­mas Eve and glow­ing reviews pour­ing in as I type mine out!

As a seasoned attendee of ZooNation’s vibrant hip-hop theatre pro­duc­tions with my chil­dren over the years, I approached Ebony Scrooge with eager anti­cip­a­tion, think­ing this would be my kind of panto altern­at­ive as it comes with a hip-hop twist! Known for their lively, humor­ous, and inter­act­ive performances—complete with delight­ful cos­tumes, props, and flaw­lessly incor­por­ated dance that leave both chil­dren and adults in awe—ZooNation has once again delivered a show that is as enter­tain­ing as it is thought-pro­vok­ing. I’ve nev­er seen a group of indi­vidu­als in Hip Hop jump­ers look as cool as I did today!

The pro­duc­tion clev­erly uses the famil­i­ar frame­work of Dick­ens’ tale, infus­ing it with a mod­ern, relat­able, multi-faceted spin (without Tiny Tim — “there’s no budget for him!”). The story is centred around Ebony Scrooge, a fash­ion design­er whose mono­chrome world reflects her emo­tion­al rigid­ity and sup­pressed grief (ie.self pro­tec­tion), her assist­ant Bob and his wish to intro­duce col­our to the design­er palette, and her niece Fred­die; a joy­ful, fluffy, pink-clad spir­ited young­ster who is keen to cel­eb­rate life. These char­ac­ters cre­ate a vibrant con­trast of char­ac­ters that sym­bol­ise indi­vidu­al­ity, encour­age­ment, heal­ing, plus the need for con­nec­tion and to be seen.

The strong min­im­al­ist set design and express­ive cho­reo­graphy speak volumes, draw­ing the audi­ence into Ebony’s intern­al world. Firstly we are intro­duced to her stu­dio, where we get the sense from the dance moves that the tail­ors are feel­ing like robots with no room for a dash of col­our or new ideas. We are then treated to Ebony’s black-and-white run­way col­lec­tion in a Madonna Vogue-style cat­walk: the designs are clean-cut, boldly asym­met­ric­al in B&W con­vey­ing a power­ful mes­sage, man­nequin props help set the scene, and dan­cers take the stage to con­vey the grand­ness of the cat­walk cos­tumes, while Ebony’s assist­ants, dressed in grey, move in fear around her.

I want you to see it for yourselves, so won’t give too much of the story away; what truly sets this pro­duc­tion apart is its mas­ter­ful use of dance, music, light­ing, and cos­tume col­our to con­vey deep human emo­tions without rely­ing heav­ily on dialogue.

The spir­its of Christ­mas Past, Present, and Future guide Ebony through a jour­ney of self-reflec­tion, reveal­ing the pain of loss, and joy of past exper­i­ences includ­ing her Carib­bean roots, she may have bur­ied, how­ever that have shaped her which is a beau­ti­ful scene. These spir­its show her the pos­sib­il­ity of trans­form­a­tion through embra­cing col­our, both lit­er­ally and meta­phor­ic­ally, whilst indir­ectly invit­ing the audi­ence to con­sider the same.

If Ebony does­n’t open up to this idea…we are shown the future is red, and scary!

The fusion of dance styles includ­ing Krump­ing, Break­ing, and Pop­ping per­fectly reflects shift­ing moods, each sequence invit­ing and tempt­ing Ebony to join in. Who can res­ist good music and a great dance?

Des­pite its sol­emn themes of grief and recon­cili­ation, the pro­duc­tion is layered, so main­tains the lively spir­it typ­ic­al of ZooN­a­tion, ensur­ing it remains access­ible and enjoy­able for all ages. A charm­ing moment that stayed with me was over­hear­ing two young girls in the inter­val whis­per­ing, “I don’t really know what’s going on.” “Neither do I… but it’s cool!”—a per­fect test­a­ment to the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of Hip Hop dance and music.

Ebony Scrooge is more than just a fest­ive show; it is a reflect­ive explor­a­tion of human con­nec­tion, loss, and the cour­age to open one’s heart. It reminds us that beneath the sur­face of tra­di­tion and cel­eb­ra­tion lies a com­plex tapestry of emo­tions, and that acknow­ledging your past, your fam­ily’s his­tory, reflect­ing on your own beha­viours on oth­ers, while choos­ing con­nec­tion over with­draw­al can open the door to heal­ing, vul­ner­ab­il­ity, and hap­pi­er times.

We were left with the mes­sage that “The world would be a bright­er place if we could all see col­our”: to embrace your indi­vidu­al­ity and acknow­ledge where you come from is to under­stand who you are.  It’s a beau­ti­ful remind­er that even in the darkest sea­sons, light can be found—sometimes in the most simplest of places — those around you.

The blend of Hip Hop dance with added emo­tion­al depth res­on­ates long after the final bow… or should I say backflip?

If you’re lucky, you may still grab one of the last remain­ing tick­ets. Prices start at £15, help­ing to keep the show access­ible. It runs until 4^th Janu­ary 2026. It doesn’t mat­ter where you sit—the theatre is beau­ti­fully designed, and you can see clearly even from the very back!

P.S. don’t for­get this is Hip Hop theatre, you can make as much noise as you like…follow the lead­er lead­er leader!

Sal­Freckles

(Pho­to­graphy by Pamela Raith Photography)

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Salfreckles

Sally Mur­row aka Sal­freckles is a Lon­don­er who works in early edu­ca­tion, she has a back­ground in graph­ic design and finds inspir­a­tion for her art from hip hop rhymes and culture.

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