Sandi and Jenifer Toksvig on the BSL-integrated ‘Christmas at the (Snow) Globe’

As sisters Sandi and Jenifer Toksvig bring their festive Christmas show to Shakespeare’s Globe, the pair talk to The Limping Chicken‘s Liam O’Dell about the play and its integration of a creative British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter to make the magic of Christmas accessible to everyone.

“We didn’t want to do ‘panto’ panto,” Jenifer says of Christmas at the (Snow) Globe. “We wanted to do something that gave a nod to Shakespeare, obviously, so there’s some plot in it that’s quite thin. It celebrates aspects of Shakespearean storytelling, but also aspects of pantomimic stuff.

“So we have a villain and we have a fairy, and we try and save the day. So we have magic, yes,” she adds.

We’re chatting in a quiet corner in the offices of Shakespeare’s Globe. The glass walls and bright coloured interior is an amusing contrast to what is a historic wooden venue. As the conversation continues, co-creator and Great British Bake Off host Sandi tells me it’s a show specifically written for the oak building.

“It’s not the show you could do anywhere else,” she explains, “and it specifically celebrates the audience in this building, because they’re very much part of it.

“That’s one of the reasons why we had Becky, who’s doing the BSL for us, she’s a character in the show. She’s not standing at the side and signing separately, because Christmas is about everybody feeling included. The audience needs to be entirely included.”

The involvement of creative BSL interpreter Becky Barry is just one way in which Christmas at the (Snow) Globe aims to make the Christmas magic accessible to everyone, alongside secret Braille messages on props and a special fragrance designed for the play.

As for British Sign Language, Jenifer says it was something which was introduced at the beginning of the process, with Sandi meeting with the Globe’s Access Manager David Bellwood before the show was written.

“We knew from the start that we wanted to have BSL integrated,” says Jenifer, “but we didn’t know how glorious that was going to be until Becky came into the room with us and we suddenly made the discovery of how full and enriching a process that is for all of us.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Sandi adds. “What I most was concerned about was being patronising. I don’t want to patronise anybody. I didn’t want it to look like I was going, ‘oh yes, and we’ve done this thing’, you know. If we’re going to do it, we have to be whole-hearted about it, but I expressed concern with [David], that we could make it work.

“But I think, the moment we gave her a character,” she continues. “So she plays the ghost of the theatre – and obviously, because it’s the Globe, she plays Hamlet’s father, because I can’t think of a better ghost to play – and somehow, that just works.

“In fact, the Head of Voice [at the Globe], Tess, and myself, are going to have BSL lessons in the new year. I’m really taken with speaking through my hands, and thinking about other ways to make work that would be an interesting use of it.”

With Christmas carols from London’s Fourth Choir, paper chains, romance and more, Christmas at the (Snow) Globe is described as “the most heart-warming of gatherings” for all the family.

While there isn’t any snow globes involved in the production, I wanted to ask one final, festive question: do they have snow globes themselves?

“I once wrote an adaptation of The Snow Queen and I was given a snow globe as a gift,” replies Jenifer, “and I have that, and I love it, but it’s that sense of a snow globe isn’t it? It’s that commonly understood, magical thing, that you know that if you turn it upside down the snow will come down, and that’s just beautiful.”

“And I promise you that feeling of wonder when you look at a snow globe, you will have that 20 times when you see the show,” Sandi adds.

Christmas at the (Snow) Globe is now playing at Shakespeare’s Globe until Monday 23 December. You can find out more about the show on the theatre’s official website.

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By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and blogger from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.