Recommended: "Elling"

Looking for something Broadway-and-fun for the holiday season? Let me recommend Elling, a winning comedy exploring the bond between two former mental patients unsteadily but creatively adjusting to life out in the world. It's based on novels by Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjornsen and the 2001 Oscar-nominated film by Petter Næss.

Directed by Doug Hughes, Elling boasts a couple of the most engaging stage performances in memory, rendered with tremendous physical investment and verve and detail and, most of all, fun by Brendan Fraser (as Kjell Bjarne) and Denis O'Hare (as the title character). Jennifer Coolidge, Richard Easton and Jeremy Shamos contribute terrific ensemble turns.

They loved it in London, and they were not wrong!

Ethel Barrymore Theatre

243 West 47th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue)

Tickets