A Christmas Carol - The Old Vic

Saw this tonight for the umpteenth time, and it was like brand new, with Owen Teale now joint equal, for me, with Rhys Ifans, as my favourite Old Vic Scrooge. Just absolutely magical.

Of the 5 Christmas Carols I've seen this holiday period, this is my favourite by a distance! This is also the only version in which I noticed kids in the audience jumping up and down for joy.

Some spoilers follow. . .

If "Christmas Carol-ish" at the Soho Theatre squandered great characters through indulgent and sloppy writing; if "Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol" depicted a Scrooge more lonely and ineffective than mean and destructive; if SRB's Bridge Christmas Carol was pared down but excellent storytelling; if the Rose Theatre's Oliver-inflected singing kids were a joy; nonetheless, none can hold a candle to the orchestra of malicious selfishness and sheer exuberant joy conducted by Owen Teale tonight!

This production has everything:

It has the bells, the bells that so beautifully ring out the Christmas Carols;

It has strength in the ensemble, with Samuel Townsend and Lydia White, as a young Scrooge/Belle combo that would look and feel just right together in any BBC Jane Austen adaptation.

It has a Scrooge spotlit, in the round, that accentuates a sense of sitting in judgement on him, but also which makes us complicit in his casual cruelties.

For the kids, it has snow falling, and also the excitement of food being served on vertiginous slides;

But above all, this production reinstates the majesty, for me, of the central performance, by having a Scrooge who is a force of nature, in his antisocial malevolence, but equally in his exuberant redemption.

Until now, for me, only Rhys Ifans made the sheer distance from terrible to redeemed both absolutely enormous as well as simultaneously completely convincing.

Owen Teale achieves this too, for me. While perhaps Ifans's fairy-like exuberance was even more charming, perhaps Teale's opening aggression is even more viciously malevolent.

Both Ifans and Teale open up gaps in states of being that seem impossible to close, and then close them.

I was in uncontrollable tears at the finale of this, just as I was the year this show was first performed. Absolutely wonderful. 5 stars from me.

I also agree, your review brought me right back to when I saw it a couple of weeks ago, and reading it made me feel emotional.  Owen Teal was stunning in the central role

think this will be back again in 23?

Confirmed today - A Christmas Carol returns to the Old Vic in November! Hurrah!!

Yay!

Christopher Ecceleston as Scrooge this year

Anyone sat in P82-p83 in stalls? Says rail in eye line. Not too bothered as I've seen it nearly a dozen times but out of interest

Has anyone spotted any offers for this yet? This time last year I bought some stage seats reduced for London Theatre Week on TodayTix, but it doesn’t seem to be included in the sale this year (although plenty of stage seats are still available).

There's SO many PWC tickets though for this so like, logically most people should be fine

Are you being sarcastic?  I read there were 5000 PWC seats in total, of which 2500 have been made available today, and there were 1900 people ahead of me in the queue...  Presume the other 2500 will go on sale in a couple of weeks in a "if you missed out first time around " type post. Meanwhile, those who are unsuccessful will mop up seats at preview prices to avoid missing out...

If it helps, I was in the queue the second it opened and still had (and have!) about 4,000 people in front of me. Oh well!

I just logged in to have a look at the number of preview tickets available on the dates and it's a lot, so wasnt being sarcastic - I genuinely thought the majority of people would probably be ok as there seemed to be a LOT available (and I got through half an hour after booking opened and there were still loads)