Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

Christmas Carol – A Fairy Tale

★★★★

Wilton’s Music Hall

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Christmas Carol - A Fairy Tale

Christmas Carol – A Fairy Tale

Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed – 5th December 2019

★★★★

 

“The magical combination of Christmas Carol and Wilton’s Music Hall makes this the ideal Christmas show”

 

A Christmas Carol is an extremely popular festive tale first told by Charles Dickens in 1843 (and best told by the Muppets in 1992). Piers Torday’s interpretation, which replaces Ebenezer Scrooge with his younger sister Fan, is a worthy edition to this canon, and a refreshing take on an old classic.

This alternate universe Christmas Carol has much in common with the original. Fan is a cold-hearted moneylender who, on Christmas Eve, is visited by three spirits in a plea to make her change her ways. But Fan, being female, has a different life to Ebenezer (who, in this story, dies young, much like Fan Scrooge does in the original). Whilst her brother is sent away to school, she keeps house for their alcoholic father. Fulfilling employment is soon cut short, and work gives way for marriage to Jacob Marley. When Marley dies, Fan, angered by the way patriarchal society has reduced her to nothing more than her husband’s property, takes over his business and runs it with a ruthlessness that makes her the richest (and most hated) woman in London.

Torday uses Fan to explore how Victorian women were shaped by social constraints. What would Scrooge have been like had he been female? The conclusion seems to be that he would have been just as tough, if not tougher. Fan’s complaint that her husband, by law, owned both her and her property is just a small glimpse into the laws and customs that held Victorian women back. When young Fan asks her brother what she will be when they grow up, his response – ‘a music teacher… or a governess, or a wife… it doesn’t matter, really’ – is a clear disappointment for such an intelligent and tenacious girl. This makes her more likeable than Ebenezer was in the original, easier to connect with. And, although this theme is sometimes handled clumsily, it is nonetheless engaging.

Above all, however, this show is a lot of fun. The script is silly and witty; it has the feeling of a panto without actually being one. The cast is faultless. Each actor excels in multiple roles, ranging from humans to spirits to animals. Sally Dexter’s performance as Scrooge is, by turns, humorous and heart-breaking: she clearly projects Torday’s message about Victorian women in an emotive and persuasive manner. Yana Penrose, playing Meagre the Cat, also deserves special mention for guiding us through the story as a puppeteer/narrator.

The fun, festive aspect of the show is accelerated by the space of Wilton’s Music Hall, which is used to great effect. The multiple set changes are smooth and impressive, whilst the Christmas decorations in the final scene make the conclusion all the more heart-warming.

The magical combination of Christmas Carol and Wilton’s Music Hall makes this the ideal Christmas show. And, whilst I am willing to die on the hill that the Muppets did it best, Christmas Carol comes pretty damn close.

 

Reviewed by Harriet Corke

Photography by  Nobby Clark

 


Christmas Carol – A Fairy Tale

Wilton’s Music Hall until 4th January

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
The Box of Delights | ★★★★ | December 2018
Dad’s Army Radio Hour | ★★★★ | January 2019
The Good, The Bad And The Fifty | ★★★★ | February 2019
The Pirates Of Penzance | ★★★★ | February 2019
The Shape Of the Pain | ★★★★★ | March 2019
The Talented Mr Ripley | ★★★★ | May 2019
The Sweet Science Of Bruising | ★★★★ | June 2019
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story | ★★★★★ | September 2019
This Is Not Right | ★★★★ | October 2019
Much Ado About Nothing | ★★★★ | November 2019

 

Click here to see our most recent reviews

 

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

★★★★

Bridge House Theatre

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , ,

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Bridge House Theatre

Reviewed – 28th November 2019

★★★★

 

“two hours after the first internalised ‘humbug’ we’re all singing ‘Have Yourselves a Merry Little Christmas’ with the cast and feeling impressively jolly”

 

The first question is ‘Why?’ Why take on the challenge of Dickens’ mawkish seasonal classic, with its rich recipe of bustling streets, vivid characters and hovels packed with rosy-cheeked urchins with four actors above a pub? Nevertheless, two hours after the first internalised ‘humbug’ we’re all singing ‘Have Yourselves a Merry Little Christmas’ with the cast and feeling impressively jolly.

The group’s secret appears to be twofold. One, to approach their task as strolling players, chivvying up spirits by strumming instruments and carolling in a vaguely Victorian manner. Two, and not quite so successfully, relying on our imaginations. So stretched are the consummate performance skills available that the ghost of Christmas future is played by a human-shaped structure with a sheet over it. Doubling up is part of the fun, of course. Bridge House Theatre regular, Jamie Ross, copes with both extremes of the optimism spectrum in bright-eyed Bob Cratchit on one hand and decomposing Jacob Marley on the other; he is also Musical Director. Ben Woods navigates a similar stretch between Scrooge’s nephew and Young Scrooge but does so effortlessly. Saorla Wright mops up the female roles and the ghost of Christmas Past with cheeriness and agility, literally jumping between parts at times, whether Mrs Cratchit, Belle or atmospheric cello.

Best of all, the central role of Scrooge is played by Rachel Izen, by some reports the first female to play the role, and it is the originality and force of her performance that keeps the venture from ever looking like coming off the rails. Playing him as a more contemporary, bullish capitalist rather than the shrivelled old fun-sponge usually depicted lifts this familiar yarn and steers it away from the gothic spookiness that’s often wasted on modern audiences anyway.

In service of Scrooge’s emotional journey, Director Guy Retallack’s own adaptation pushes the action along and allows for joyous interludes like a game of charades with the audience, a threat of participation which brings the only true scary moment for many. His adaptation also demands great discipline and support from the creative and technical departments, outstanding among which is the Sound Design from Phil Lee, who is kept especially busy evoking a roomful of invisible children and howling winds whenever a door is opened. The puppetry (Consultant, Jo Elizabeth May) is a good solution to space and cast issues, but an inanimate Tiny Tim is as hard to love as it’s possible for a sickly child to be. This is awkward given his job of delivering the tear-jerking last line, but by then everyone has caught Bob Cratchit’s spirit of forgiveness and is ready to join the singalong. Why? Because ‘Christmas’.

 

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

 


A Christmas Carol

Bridge House Theatre until 22nd December

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Plaid Tidings | ★★★ | December 2018
Twelfth Night | ★★★★ | June 2019
Tick, Tick… BOOM! | ★★★★ | October 2019

 

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