ACAROLWORTH SINGING ABOUT
Dickens adaptation is something special
A Christmas Carol
Gate Theatre
Until January 18 ★★★★★
One commentator has written that Dickens’s Christmas
Carol created a secular counterpoint to the story of the Nativity.
The novel briefly mentions that Scrooge went to church after his transformation from soul-dead curmudgeon into a caring human: Tiny Tim gets the final word with his great cry of ‘God bless us, every one’: Marley’s ghost has to drag chains around with him, the legacy of his selfish life. And that’s about it on the formal religious side. The essence of the book is about the need for love, compassion, good will and merriment, dished up with lavish descriptions of food, plump turkeys and geese, music and dancing.
And Selina Cartmell has caught the Dickensian spirit of the novel spectacularly in her imaginative direction of this sparkling and utterly charming production. The Gate has been rearranged to give the adaptation by Jack Thorne room to breathe, free from the restraints of the usual stage setting. The stage has been erected mid-theatre, with half the audience in the normal stage area, the other half seated as usual.
From the moment the exceptional cast of 15 climb on to the stage at the beginning, playing a beautiful carol ring of hand bells, you know you’re in for something special.
There’s narrative and dialogue straight from the novel, and having the stage located in the centre without the usual lighting, evokes all the foggy gloom of Victorian London. The three ghosts are more pragmatic than spooky, laying out Scrooge’s wasted life before him; and Owen Roe is a wonderfully responsive Scrooge, barely able to look at his youthful self, first as the lonely boy bullied by his father, then as the lover who turned his back on love for the sake of wealth, and finally overcome by remorse and the spirit of penitence, into an exhilarated spirit sharing his repentant joy around the audience.
The adaptation is faithful to the spirit of the original without sticking rigidly to it, (although Belle’s accusation that the unmarried Scrooge ‘never had a partner’ is decidedly modern). Mr Fezziwig, here an undertaker to whom Scrooge was apprenticed, is played with gusto by Stephen Blount as he rouses all his family and young employees to a joyous celebration of Christmas dancing. And it’s in those scenes where the entire cast dance, sing and interact, that Selina Cartmell shows her ability to choreograph large groups so brilliantly. Christmas carols have a huge role in the show, beautifully integrated into the story, never holding up the action. And the finale, with a repeat of the bell-ringing delight, has all the warm sentiment that’s at the very heart of Dickens.
‘All the warm sentiment that’s at the very heart of Dickens’