If big commercial shows and mainstream Christmas entertainment isn't your thing, London Theatre still has plenty of "alternative" choices. Here's two which are worth your attention.
If you've visitors whose English isn't so strong a fun outing for you all would be the Bianco Circus on the South Bank. There's a pretty and huge Christmas market to explore and loads of street food stalls to tempt you even before you enter the tent.
As you plunge into the darkness there's a company of charismatic acrobats rushing around creating the illusion of a touring bunch of eccentrics who've just landed to put on a show for us.
Rehearsed though all this fractious activity is, it actually reflects the group's ethos as they all really do live and travel as a community.
There are no seats and you're encouraged throughout to move around for the best views and as required by the different equipment needed for each act. Small children need to be assertive to remain at the front so their view isn't blocked by taller adults.
You should also explain to any kids you you take that, in these p.c. times, this isn't the Circus of picture books, no animal acts (thankfully) no ring master no garishly made-up clowns. This is an evening of muscly European twenty-something's swinging on stuff. Often swinging fast on high up stuff, but actually not that high and not that daringly.
I have to confess I was a little underwhelmed by acts like the juggler lady pretending to be drunk and drop clubs and a high wire act a whole five feet of the ground - he does clever tricks but I'd like at least the illusion that some of this is "death defying" as they used to say of the acrobats in traditional circuses.
Still, the company's enthusiasm is contagious and if feels cool to be in the electric, pumped up, atmosphere of their company. They're very smiley. It's like they dare you not to love them.
BIANCO - South Bank Centre - THREE STARS. http://www.nofitstate.org/bianco
If you have any conception of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of 1920's excess THE GREAT GATSBY it's probably of splendour and opulence. You might be surprised to learn a theatre company are staging it as a low-budget musical in a tiny basement, not much bigger than the average living room, off Leicester Square.
You may also be as surprised as I was that it actually works very well.
Linnie Reedman's company Ruby in the Dust strip the narrative of its decadent trappings and focus very effectively on telling the story as recalled by its leading female character as she sits at a nightclub table years after the events of the novel have taken place. This is Daisy Buchanan the rich and alluring high society beauty who must choose between her hunky cheating husband and the obsessive Jay Gatsby who spends a fortune on glamorous parties in order to reignite the passion of Daisy's pre-marital affair with him.
Cressida Bonas is wonderful as Daisy, really capturing her damaged and brittle psyche as well as the playfulness and lust for life. It's such a pity that the men she meets trample that out of her as they mould her into the wife or girlfriend they want her to be.
Given that she's contributing such an effervescent performance it seemed a little cruel to expect her to sing too, she can't, and her solos are surplus to the story telling.
Otherwise it's powerfully conveyed thanks to some brilliantly minimal staging and a talented, hard working and attractive cast many of whom play live instruments to augment the recorded backing tracks - a combination that works very well, all credit to the clever sound designer and operator.
This unusual show is well worth a visit.
GATSBY - Leicester Square Theatre - FOUR STARS. http://www.leicestersquaretheatre.com/
For a a year or so now Freddie Tapner's 32-strong London Musical Theatre Orchestra have met in private to play through some of the great musical theatre scores for their own pleasure.