A Christmas Carol - The Old Vic

I've just noticed this on the Old Vic website:

"Recommended for ages 11+
Contains haunting supernatural themes and some content which younger audiences may find upsetting."

Part of me after reading that is now thinking "What in God's name are they doing in this version?!"

The death of Tiny Tim?

They are both doing it because it is a set book for GCSE English next school year. So is Macbeth (NT). It would be interesting to look into just how much the school syllabus drives programming - quite a lot I think. 

I think that the exam syllabus should connect with if not drive what companies put on. How on earth are kids supposed to understand Macbeth unless they see a production? And films just don't hack it. Dramatising novels is a bit different though of course Dickins dramatises so well. Not many kids will get to the Stratford show or the Old Vic one. It might look sometimes like the RSC is full of kids and I love that but on the whole it is a small number of pupils who get that opportunity.

You would expect 'A' level students to go to the theatre on their own. And I've not met many for whom Macbeth isn't the one chosen at GCSE. It would be nice to think that a whole generation studying Macbeth would result in a canny understanding of how tyrants operate.

Oooh! I have a crush on John Dagleish so definitely booking!

Wow what an absolute delight this production is!

We couldn’t have been more pleased with our £10 PWC preview stall seats - Amazing to be on the stage, felt very immersive (I did feel for anyone in the front rows of the normal stalls could miss out on moments & some of the beautiful lighting on stage - I look forward to hearing from others on their experience at this show). As got onto the stage I was greeted with a mince pie so the evening was set to be festive.

We all know this Dickens take, wherever its through the book, a TV/Movie adaption, ‘The Muppets’ so for the stage it needs an edge to make you feel like you are coming to this story like you have never seen it and this offered this in spades.

It’s a creative set that starts bare & small props come into play, I won’t go into detail as it’s a key part of the show and I wouldn’t dare spoil it.

Rhys Is an excellent ‘Scrooge’ he plays it with malice, pathos, dark heart with underlining warmth and he is supported with a spirited cast (‘Tiny Tim’ did not jar) and Alex Gaumond always love to see him (there’s a brilliant musical theatre moment!).

This goes quite dark in places which was moving and then it’s also funny and engaging, a big scene of audience interaction is a delight!

I absolutely loved this show!!

Well. For those who love a group of people getting their bells out for an audience (and who doesn't?), you'll love it. It's a campanologist's dream.

It might have been the mulled wine. It may have been the sugar rush from the copious amount of mince pies I devoured during the day in preparation. It may have indeed been both but I thought it was, in the words of the late Bernard Matthews, bootiful.

Imagine if you will the foyer of the Bridge Theatre with a catwalk down the middle and you've got the set. I hope Nicky x2 don't see this production, they may sue. It's fabulously lit and staged and there's some lovely box work with cubes pushed about the stage like an episode of 'The Krypton Factor'. There are some rather smashing top hats on show (I wish I'd worn my own) and for those who love a bit of pretend door action you should be delighted.

The cast are uniformly marvellous and while I've not particularly been a fan in the past, Rhys Ifans was just wonderful (and the way he worked with Tiny Tim at the end was delightful) but special mention for me has to go to Eugene McCoy as Fred, Erin Doherty as Belle and John Dagleish as Bob Cratchit, all three are absolutely smashing. The arrival of the three ghosts is done very well too. Now I admit to having a real fondness for 'A Christmas Carol' in all its sentimentality but this production brought many a tear to my glass eye from pretty much the arrival of Ghost Numero Uno. So much so, I've booked to go back again closer to the big JC's birthday.

Now excuse me while I give my bells a polish.

Brilliant version of "A Christmas Carol:" dramatic, moving, musical and magical. There won't be a better Christmas show this year!

Some spoilers follow. . .

More Scrooge-like than Ryan, it never crossed my mind to eat mince pies in November. But the show rectified that as I took my onstage seat (there had been no "front-facing" seats left when my ginormous PWC queue-it booking bingo number was FINALLY called 6 weeks ago), by having a beaming tall gent in a top hat graciously offer me a tray of warm mince pies. A bribe, I thought, to mollify my fury, when the actors on stage form that unnatural stage posture, where they all turn their backs to me, having a conversation where noone looks at each other because they are all facing the principal audience. Never happened. Matthew Warchus' gift to the onstage audience, as well as to the side-facing audiences, is to stage conversations as they happen, with characters facing each other, so you either see two profiles, or you see one of the character's faces. You might say this is staged as if in the round, which it effectively is.

The stage is vast, extended by a ramp across the entire stalls, although the principal performance area is demarked by four empty door frames. Set and costume designer, Rob Howell, scores a massive win by using these frames to delimit metaphorically the cruel compartmentalisation of Scrooge's mind, that allows him to justify his behaviour, as well as using the ramp to suggest generous expanses beyond. And the outfit Howell puts Rhys Ifans' Scrooge in is equally effective, a warm red coat covered in endless layers of dust, suggesting a warm core, literally and metaphorically smothered by the passage of time, a Father Christmas trapped in amber. The melding of actor and part are seamless, as Ifans' dishevelled persona (defined for me years ago by his scally in "Notting Hill") has always seemed averse to acknowledging time.

Jack Thorne's adaptation of Dickens is perfectly judged. Faithful to Dickens to a large extent, but also bringing in his own bugaboos about the way parents shape children, and his thoughts about how we fulfil the social responsibility of being alive, he judges perfectly the moments that actors should be story narrators, and the moments actors should play characters in scenes. This balance is so often done wrong, as it was in the Broadbent version not long ago, where there was too much narrating, and where the tone was twee. Here the tone is truthful and dark, yet, like the Santa suit that Ifans' Scrooge is secretly wearing, the show is choc full of magic, magic, magic!

The core of the magic, for a Christmas show like this, lies in the title. Matthew Warchus and Jack Thorne understand that it is the "Carol" part of the title that is most precious. It is music that speaks to the soul most eloquently, and carols pour from this production, which has almost wall-to-wall music, whereby carols fill spaces between scenes, but even during scenes a piano eloquently underscores emotions. If this was another show, you'd say it was too much, but at Christmas, nothing feels more right than to embed the show in this warm glow of music. The different pitches of bells, that the cast periodically handle, like town cryers of the spirit, actively demonstrate how magical musical creation is, in a way that recreates childish wonder even for a cynical adult.

And if actual children demand magic beyond music, to hold their attention, it is there:



The supporting cast are all wonderful, with Erin Doherty as Scrooge's compassionate, but truthful, lost love Belle, and Alex Gaumond as Scrooge's father and as Marley, exceptional. But it is Rhys Ifans who is the true gem here. I liked him as the fool in Lear. I was frightened of him as the audience assailing homeless man in "Protest Song." But this role bottles his frightening and likeable qualities so perfectly that I can say I absolutely loved him in this!

Overall, this is an unmissable Christmas treat, and if like me, you think mince pies are only for December, this show might change your mind!

5 stars

If you mean, are they scary, then, not one bit.

I remember attending a highly enjoyable "Christmas Carol" show where Patrick Stewart just sat in a chair in front of a fire and read the whole thing, and his "scary ghost voice" was scarier than anything in this lol.

When I looked at the website to see if the cast warranted booking this, I saw there was no cast member for "Ghost of Christmas Future," so I thought, whoa, maybe it's animatronic, or maybe a projection of Vincent Price, or maybe Rhys Ifans doubles. . . The truth about this ghost is a massive spoiler, so look here:

A nice production with female ghosts but not totally to my taste because at times it seemed to slight. Stage entended out through stalls and audience also on stage. Two acts each running 50 minutes.