A Christmas Carol - 2000, television

Having started with a production from the BBC, it seems only fair to next look at one from the Corporation’s main rivals for the affections of British viewers down the years - ITV…

  

Title:

A Christmas Carol

Format:

Single-camera film, television drama

Country:

UK

Production company:

London Weekend Television, for ITV

Year:

2000 (first broadcast on ITV on December 20^th that year)

Length:

72 minutes

Setting:

Contemporary Britain

Background:

Perhaps surprisingly, given the length of time they’ve been around and their status as, along with the BBC, one of the two main broadcasters of British television drama, this seems to have been ITV’s only real effort at A Christmas Carol. They have often made one-off heartwarming dramas to be shown around Christmas time – The Flint Street Nativity from the previous year being another example. Shot single-camera on film (although probably edited on video), as was the vast majority of British television drama by this point.

Cast and crew:

Star Ross Kemp had become a household name in the UK in the 1990s for his role as Grant Mitchell in the soap opera EastEnders, one of the BBC’s most popular programmes. After leaving EastEnders as one of the most recognisable faces on British television, Kemp had signed a “golden handcuffs” deal with ITV, meaning he would star in programmes exclusively for them for a number of years.

I had long assumed that ITV had then stuck him into any random projects they had going, hence his turning up here as “Eddie Scrooge” in a modern-day retelling of A Christmas Carol. But a few years ago, I read an account by someone who had worked on the on-air promotional campaign for this production for ITV, who said that this had actually been an idea Kemp had personally championed, and that the BBC’s reluctance to take it up had been one of the factors that had led to him signing up for ITV.

The script itself is written by Peter Bowker, who by 2000 was well on his way to becoming one of the most acclaimed writers working in British television, a reputation he has consolidated with the likes of Blackpool (2004) and Marvellous (2014). Director Catherine Morshead has subsequently worked on some of British television’s most popular drama series, such as Doctor Who and Downton Abbey.

The supporting cast is stuffed full of familiar faces for British television viewers, including Warren Mitchell (best known for the sitcom Till Death Us Do Part), Lorraine Ashbourne (a huge number of roles across numerous British television dramas, but the sort of actress whose face you’re likelier to recognise than her name), Mina Anwar (The Thin Blue Line, The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Liz Smith (The Vicar of Dibley, The Royle Family). This was not Smith’s first brush with the Carol – she played Scrooge’s charlady, Mrs Dilber, on two occasions in more traditional adaptations of the tale; the 1984 version starring George C. Scott and the 1999 version starring Patrick Stewart, of both of which there will doubtless be more on this blog in due course. Smith isn’t the only actor also to appear in both this and the Patrick Stewart version, either – Ben Tibber plays Tim in both productions.

There's probably nothing on anyway...

 

Underdone Potato:

Jacob Marley was Eddie Scrooge’s partner in a loansharking business, and was murdered rather than dying a natural death. Eddie does turn down his nephew’s invitation to dinner – said nephew being a police officer called Dave here, rather than Fred. Instead of refusing to give to charity, we establish what sort of character Eddie is by seeing him calling in some of the debts he’s owed, confiscating and destroying a single mother’s television and taking £5 off an elderly couple for their latest payment.

Marley’s visit to Eddie’s flat is very brief, compared to some other versions, and when he says Eddie will receive three visitors he doesn’t explicitly state they’ll also be ghosts, although Eddie is clearly expecting ghosts later on.

Past:

One of Bowker’s most interesting ideas is to make all of the Spirits people who have a connection to Eddie – so the Ghost of Christmas Past turns out to be his father, played in a very good piece of casting by Warren Mitchell. There’s no real equivalent of the school or Fezziwig scenes here, although we do see Eddie meet and then lose his great love – Bella, rather than Belle, on this occasion. Given that Kemp is not an old Scrooge, however, he has not yet entirely lost all hope of reclaiming her affections…

Present:

Another of Bowker’s interesting innovations for this adaptation is that rather than experiencing all the visitations on a single night, Eddie Scrooge ends up living a “Goundhog Day”-style existence on Christmas Eve, experiencing the same day over again with each visitation, and then after he’s been redeemed – so almost all of the action actually takes place on the 24^th.

Another innovation is that there is no separate Ghost of Christmas Present – instead, Marley doubles-up in the role, as it’s “our busiest night of the year.” Bowker also gives the story an extra twist when, after seeing what’s happening in the present, Eddie has a false redemption, making the appearance of trying to put things right but without actually having changed in and of himself, only doing it for the sake of appearances and to try and impress Bella.

There’s a different take on Ignorance and Want, as well – not hidden under Marley’s clothes, but perhaps represented by the homeless brother and sister who recur throughout the drama, and in this instance die of hypothermia despite Eddie’s eventually genuine efforts to help.

Yet to Come:

There is no hooded figure here, merely a silent and pallid boy who Eddie thinks he knows – I won’t say who it turns out to be, as it would spoil it for you if you haven’t seen this version yet. It’s not often I’ll give spoiler warnings on this blog, given that I expect most readers will be very familiar with the story, but as this is a twist not repeated in any other version that I’m aware of, I shall let you to discover it for yourself.

Instead of Mrs Dilber and the laundress selling their ill-gotten gains to Old Joe, we see Eddie’s stuff being sold off on trestle tables outside his flat, at a kind of jumble sale. The death of Tim has not only left the Cratchits bereft here, but has hastened the end of their marriage too – along with the fact that Bob had to work for Eddie because of all the money he owed him, something his wife hated.

Eddie’s grave and his pleas to the ghost about whether or not these are the things will be or only might be are, however, probably the closest this adaptation ever comes to the specifics of the original text.

What’s To-Day:

There’s no real equivalent of the “What’s to-day?” moment from the original, but that’s probably because it isn’t Christmas Day in this version, and when he awakes Eddie pretty much knows he’s going to be living through Christmas Eve again – but this time he’s going to do it right.

He does go to his nephew’s for dinner the next day, however, after having written off the debts he’s owed, bestowed a variety of gifts upon those he’s wronged, and fired Bob while at the same time secretly giving his family thousands of pounds. Oh, and he even manages a Christmas kiss with Bella – all say “aah!”

Will happen, or might happen? This shot looks much better static than it does while moving in the drama.

Review:

Before this was made, “A modern day version of A Christmas Carol starring Ross Kemp,” probably sounded like a rather cynical, if not ludicrously Alan Partridge-style pitch for a television drama. But the talent involved means it was never in any danger of being bad – Bowker brings an assured, confident and original touch that only very occasionally goes too far into saccharine, and there are excellent performances from a range of hugely experienced British television talent.

That includes Kemp. Obviously at the time he was very well-known – almost exclusively known – for playing a stereotypical “hard man” role as Grant Mitchell in EastEnders, and he is of course to a degree playing up to that, and the audience’s expectations of it, here. But he’s actually a better actor than he’s generally given credit for, something I first remember noting shortly after he left EastEnders when he appeared in a totally different role as a drag queen in an episode of the not-as-well-remembered-as-it-ought-to-be police drama City Central. His subsequent documentary work as shown that he and Grant Mitchell are not one and the same – he’s just an actor who became particularly well known just for playing one certain type of part, but was capable of more.

Bowker’s script is full of little gems in terms of the dialogue – I particularly liked the line Bob gets about the vicar conducting Tim’s funeral being “bald… but nice with it.” Whether or not that was also a sly little dig at the star of the show, I’m not sure!

Catherine Morshead’s direction keeps things moving along nicely, and it’s interesting that despite this being only one fifth longer than the 1977 BBC version, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as crammed-in or as rushed – completely the opposite from what you’d expect of a multi-camera studio production versus a single-camera effort shot primarily on location. There’s only one shot here I felt really didn’t work, and just jarred – the shots with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in the foreground and Eddie following behind him, pleading, in the graveyard, where the Spirit looks as if he’s floating. I can see what Morshead was trying to do here, but for me it just feels rather off-putting, taking me out of things by seeming completely out-of-sync with how everything else is shot.

In a nutshell:

A sensitively-updated version – not one of the greatest adaptations ever, but certainly one of the best to have transplanted the story to a contemporary setting. A good source of nostalgia for anyone who watched its original transmission when they were young, as well.

Almost certainly the only adaptation of the story that ever has, or ever will, contain the credit “With Thanks to Stannah Stairlifts” in its end titles.

Links:

Wikipedia

IMDb