Title:
A Christmas
Carol
Format:
Live online
streaming relay of stage play
Country:
UK
Production
company:
The Old Vic
Year:
2020
Length: 2 hours approximately, including a 15-minute interval
Setting:
Victorian
Background:
Into the
twenties! This is the first review on this blog of a
Carol from the
2020s, although the text of this particular version actually pre-dates this.
This theatrical adaptation had first been performed at London’s
Old Vic in 2017, and had become something of a modern festive tradition – returning
for runs with new leading men for Christmases 2018 and 2019. It had also seen
successes when transplanted overseas, with productions having run in Broadway
and Dublin, but due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic it was all change for
2020.
Instead of being
able to have audiences in for a new stage version, The Old Vic did what they’d
also done for other productions during the pandemic and made it a part of their
Old Vic: In Camera series. So every performance in the run would be
staged live by the cast and crew in the otherwise-empty auditorium of the
theatre, with a limited number of tickets available for each performance to
view an online stream via Zoom. These performances, we are assured, would not
then be available on a catch-up service – each one was unique, and live, and
once they were gone they were gone.
This attracted me
because it seemed like the closest you could get to experiencing the earliest
days of live television drama. Of watching something on the screen that was
being performed live many miles away, and yet could never been seen again.
Cast and crew:
This year’s
Scrooge is actor
Andrew Lincoln, who first came to fame as one of the stars of
the critically-lauded, zeitgeist-seizing BBC Two drama series
This Life
in the mid-1990s. He then starred in Channel 4’s drama
Teachers
and had a prominent film part in the Christmas movie
Love, Actually,
before finding a whole new group of fans as the lead in the US cable television
zombie apocalypse drama
The Walking Dead.
Of the rest of
the cast, most familiar to me personally was
Clive Rowe as Fezziwig – Rowe had
had a prominent guest role in the blockbusting
Doctor Who Christmas
special
Voyage of the Damned in 2007, and would also be familiar to a
generation of British children’s television viewers for his regular part in
The
Story of Tracy Beaker. Lenny Rush, who had been one of several boys sharing
the role of Tiny Tim in the first two years of the Old Vic version in 2017 and
2018, returned to share it again this year, although on the night I watched it
the part was played by one of the others sharing it. Presumably off the back of
his success in the part on-stage, Rush had also played Tim in
the 2019 television version.
Writer
Jack Thorne is one of the most acclaimed television scriptwriters working in Britain
today. He wrote for
Skins and
Shameless, collaborated on the
various
This is England series with Shane Meadows, and is the writer for
the television adaptations of Philip Pullman’s
His Dark Materials
series. No stranger to fantasy material, he also wrote the Harry Potter play,
Harry
Potter and the Cursed Child.
Underdone Potato:
We open with a
nine-person chorus made up of members of the supporting cast, each taking it in
turn to perform lines from an edited version of the book’s opening passages,
dressed – and indeed performing – as a group of handbell ringers. I liked this, and
thought it worked particularly well when they would suddenly all come together
to say the same word or phrase at once, when particular emphasis was needed.
It’s quite a
condensed version of the opening ‘stave’ of the book, and moves along at a fair
old pace. The charitable gentlemen have been replaced in this version by a
group of carol singers, with whom Scrooge exchanges most of the usual lines
from that segment as he attempts to chase them away from his door.
Fred’s visit has
also been cut down, although it does preserve one of my favourite lines which
is often cut – the one about being fellow passengers on the journey to the
grave. Thorne clearly likes it, too, as it get repeated towards the end as we
shall see.
Interestingly,
the exchange between Scrooge and Cratchit about the latter wanting “the whole
day tomorrow” is gone. Instead, it’s taken as read that Cratchit won’t be in
the following day, although Scrooge does mention wanting him in earlier on “Boxing
Day” – which I think might be slightly anachronistic, or at least on the
early side, for 1843, although in fairness it’s never stated when exactly
within the Victorian era this version is set, and as in many cases throughout
it’s an example of modern language for a modern audience.
In an addition
from Thorne, Scrooge sends Bob out on some ridiculously long errands so he won’t
be home until late on Christmas Eve – something Bob protests about because his
son Tim likes to wait outside for him. This is a Chekhov’s gun of a line which literally comes
back to haunt Scrooge later.
After Bob has gone,
Marley appears very quickly. Most of this scene is played fairly intact to the
Dickens, although with some interesting tweaks. Scrooge’s line about Marley
being “particular, for a shade” (although changed to “phantom”) survives when
it is often lost, and seems to have informed quite a bit of Thorne’s
interpretation of the character – a sort of biting sarcasm which is present
throughout.
Another line from
the Marley sequence which I have always liked, but isn’t always included, is his
one about this opportunity for Scrooge being “a chance and hope” of Marley’s
procuring. Thorne keeps it, but also makes an intriguing addition – saying that
this came for Marley as “not little cost.”
When Marley departs,
there’s a very nicely-staged sequence of him being dragged away by his chains,
which works very well.
Past:
The Ghost of
Christmas Past is female in this version, and doesn’t appear to have any
particularly candle-like qualities. There’s an interesting similarity to some
other versions as the first vision of Scrooge’s schooldays begins, with Scrooge
calling out the other boys’ names. When the Spirit tells him that the visions
have no consciousness of them, she adds a new line from Thorne: “unless we let
them,” which quickly becomes relevant.
We see Scrooge as
a schoolboy and have some of the often-omitted material about his younger self’s
love of the fictional characters in the books he read. We meet Fan, and then we
spear away from Dickens to also meet Scrooge’s father. In common with several
other versions, Thorne goes much further than any implication found in the book
and makes Scrooge’s father a drunken, abusive debtor – perhaps drawing more
from Dickens’s own real life than from the fiction of A Christmas Carol.
This drawing from
Dickens also includes some cross-pollination from the author’s other famous work, with Fezziwig’s
business being specified as an undertaker’s here. Being apprenticed to an
undertaker was, of course, briefly the fate of the eponymous character in Oliver
Twist. It’s very common for adaptors of the Carol to add Belle into
the Fezziwig party scene, but here Thorne goes even further – he makes her Fezziwig’s
daughter.
Lincoln as
Scrooge isn’t just watching these visions unfold before him – he enters into them,
playing the part of his younger self in all but the school scene. There’s a
perhaps surprising lack of subtlety at one point here when Thone gives Belle a
line about, “those with can afford to support those without,” which is of course
one of the messages of the book but feels a little on-the-nose. Then again,
according to a caption ahead of the performance I watched, this is aimed at
anyone from the age of eight upwards, so perhaps he just wanted to ensure even
the youngest members of the audience got the message.
There’s an extra
scene of Scrooge with Fan and his father at home, but no actual break-up scene
with Belle. The second Belle scene isn’t here, either, but it isn’t omitted entirely
– instead, it’s been moved to the ‘present’ section, as we shall see.
Present:
This was probably
my least favourite section of the play – I think perhaps because it should have
such moments of light in it, but in this version it really held only darkness.
The Ghost of
Christmas Present is, like the first spirit, female – nothing wrong with that.
But its manner is far from the jovial figure of the original and of most
interpretations. Instead, throughout the spirit is very hard and harsh with
Scrooge, which makes the whole segment feel rather unnecessarily bleak and
cheerless.
There’s no doubt
that the Spirit in the original Dickens can be like this – for instance,
which it throws the “surplus population” line back in Scrooge’s face, or when
it unveils Ignorance and Want to him (something which doesn’t happen here,
perhaps not so surprisingly for a stage version). But I feel that’s all the
more effective because it comes from a character we’ve seen to be so
cheerful so much of the time – but when faced with Scrooge’s attitude it’s
driven to such hardness. Whereas here, the hardness is ever-present.
There is a
nicely-observed line from Thorne where Scrooge points out that the ghost is, “of
the present, not the future,” presumably derived from Thorne’s thoughts on the
exchange in the book between the two of them about Tim’s future. The Spirit,
however, has a decent retort later, saying she is the “ghost of present causes”
when she doesn’t just suggest that Tim is going to die, but actually shows Scrooge
his moment of death. Tim doesn’t have any specific ailment in this version, but
we are reminded of the fact he had been out standing and waiting for his father
in the cold.
We also see Scrooge’s
father again in this section, begging for a loan from his son, and we learn
that old Fezziwig was also one of Scrooge’s debtors before he died. The latter presumably
being inspired by the similar addition made to the 1951 film version. The scene
of Belle and her actual husband is moved to this segment of the story, and as
might be expected isn’t so light-hearted as the equivalent in the book, with
Belle accusing her husband of regularly spying on Scrooge!
Yet to Come:
After the interval, we come into the second half of the play here. There is a brief
suggestion of the traditional Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – or as Scrooge
calls it here, rather in the American fashion, the “Ghost of Christmas Future”.
Its description is given by the chorus, but after this cameo its role in proceedings
is quickly taken over by Scrooge’s sister, Fan.
This is where
Thorne really veers away from the book, throwing out Dickens almost entirely
for the whole segment. Instead of the mourning Cratchits, the relieved young
couple, the mocking businessmen or Old Joe’s lair, we are given a series of brief
monologues delivered by mourners at Scrooge’s funeral – Bob, Fred and even
Belle. The Bob one is particularly odd, suggesting a gratitude to Scrooge even
after having been fired by him following his falling apart from Tim’s death. I
half-wondered whether there’s meant to be some suggestion Bob has become or is
becoming as hard-hearted as Scrooge and is grateful to him for that, but there
doesn’t seem quite enough of a thread to pull on there.
In some versions of the story the only vision Scrooge is presented with in the future is that of
his own gravestone, which is ridiculous as everybody knows that everyone
eventually dies. Thorne clearly thinks the same as he has Scrooge make the
point here that it’s not exactly a shocking revelation to know that he’s going
to die someday.
What’s To-Day:
There’s no boy
for Scrooge to shout down to from a window – instead, Scrooge welcomes a couple
of charity collectors into his home and confirms with them that it is indeed Christmas.
He also showers them with money, in a scene reminiscent of some of those you
see in certain
silent and
animated versions of the story.
The best of
Thorne’s additions to the story comes here, as Scrooge decides to make his
first port of call Belle’s house. It’s a melancholy and touching little
scene, as he confesses that he wishes he had done things differently, but she
says that she does not wish that she had. She points out that in waiting for
Scrooge, she waited long enough to eventually meet and marry the man with whom
she was happy, and she would not change that life.
There’s some
lovely dialogue from Thorne here, as Belle tells Scrooge: “you are part of my
story, and I’m delighted with how my story turned out.” His slightly mournful
pleasure that “I was a part of your story” reminded of unrequited lover Ishmael’s
line towards the end of David Guterson’s novel
Snow Falling on Cedars – “I
hope when you’re old and grey and looking back, you’ll remember me, just a
little…”
Although
admittedly, Andrew Lincoln standing in a doorway face-to-face with the woman his
character loves in a Christmas production probably puts most people in mind of
something else entirely.
The three spirits
– well, Fan and the other two, depending on how you count them – get a cameo
here, wondering what Scrooge will do now. What he does do is go to Fred’s,
quoting his “fellow passengers” line at him and arranging for his entire
Christmas dinner to be transported lock, stock and barrel to the Cratchits.
Things go from
serious, moving drama to pantomime here, as there are all sorts of antics with
various vegetables being thrown about, and Lincoln taking the piss out of a
member of the crew who is presumably taking the place of a volunteer from the
audience from the usual stage version.
“God bless us,
every one,” from the chorus isn’t the very end of things here after the visit
to the Cratchits. Instead, there’s a cameo with Scrooge and the spirits –
including Marley – where there’s some debate over how changed Scrooge is and
what this actually means now for his future life. Or indeed, whether or not it
was all a dream. Interestingly, despite Marley saying Scrooge can only help
himself and not him, he isn’t wearing his chains here.
There’s just time
for a spot of carol-singing and a bit more bell-ringing, and that’s that.
Review:
I suppose the
other adaptation with which this can be most closely compared is the 2019 television
version by Steven Knight. They are both written by highly-acclaimed authors of
esteemed British television dramas, and they both attempt to take a new look at
the old classic through a decidedly 21
st century eye.
I’ve seen the
pair of them the ‘wrong’ way around, because although this was a new production
for 2020, Jack Thorne’s script of course was first written and produced before
Knight’s version got off the ground. And I cannot help but think Thorne’s work must
have been to at least some degree an influence on Knight. They both, for
example, choose to make Scrooge’s sister one of the three spirits, something
which I’m not aware of any other version ever having done.
Except that
Knight seems to have decided to take some of the darker elements Thorne
introduced and gone rather overboard with them. For example, whereas here we
have only a brief allusion to Scrooge being mistreated by his schoolmaster, in
Knight’s interpretation this was a full-on case of sexual abuse.
I made no secret
of the fact that I
loathed Knight’s script, but I will say that’s far
from being the case with what Thorne has done. While I certainly enjoyed the
first half of the play a great deal more than the second, Thorne both stays a
lot closer to Dickens for the most part but also brings a touching quality to
at least
some of the extra or different scenes he introduces into the
story – particularly to Scrooge’s final meeting with Belle after his redemption.
I do think,
however, that the error both Thorne and Knight make is in feeling that the tale
needs
more of a moral lesson than it already possessed. As if they felt
Dickens’s morality tale had become too chocolate-coated, too cosy in the
retelling and the familiarity we have with it. That may be true, but unlike the
pair of them I think you can still give it its power by stripping it back to
what’s actually
there, rather than adding what is not.
I can have no
complaints, however, about the cast, although I do wonder about Scrooge’s
sister having a Scottish accent. But it’s theatre, of course, and theatre –
particularly in time of covid – is definitely a heightened reality where such
things don’t really matter. And it
was supposedly an Edinburgh
gravestone which inspired Scrooge’s name in the first place, after all.
The only aspect
of the staging which I found at all distracting was a lot of business with imaginary
doors being opened and closed with accompanying sound effects. However, I’m not
sure whether this was a deliberate stylistic choice, or more of a necessity for
this production to ensure lots of different people weren’t having to touch the same
door handles.
You could tell,
of course, that this was theatre in the midst of a pandemic, with everyone keeping
their distance, but it was staged and shot so well that I’m not sure you’ll
have necessarily noticed that if you didn’t know. It would make an interesting
case study for anyone looking back at theatre during covid-19 in the years to
come, anyway.
Zoom of course
will be a brand name forever associated with this time, and it seemed to hold up
very well through the performance I watched – there was the very occasional
stutter, but nothing serious and the picture held up very well. The sound
quality was excellent throughout, and the camera work in capturing the live
performance was on the whole very good. There was the occasional
swiftly-adjusted out-of-focus shot, the odd spot of camera wobble and even a
time or two when there had to be a sudden pan to find an out-of-shot actor. But
I can easily forgive all that, and indeed it added to that long-lost atmosphere
of live television drama which I wanted to see if this production might capture
a little of.
In a nutshell:
It was fun to
watch for the novelty of a live theatrical relay, and well done to them for
getting it on at all. But I can’t hand-on-heart say I loved this version, which
is a shame as it did start very well.
Links:
Wikipedia
