Days of Scrooge: Andy Serkis stars in a classic Christmas tale.
Charles Dickens’ classic story takes a dark turn in the TV adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
AChristmas Carol is not a story for young children, warns Andy Serkis who plays the Spirit of Christmas Past in a new adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.
A Christmas Carol is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited first by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, and then by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet To Come.
They show him how his behaviour has affected those around him and Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
“It gets a little dark and scary but it’s a happy ending,” says Serkis, who was Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings. “That is the expectation most people have of that story. Our version is a darker telling of this tale. It really examines the character of Scrooge in a way that I don’t think has ever been seen before.”
The three-parter, which was written by Steven Wright (Peaky Blinders), also stars Guy Pearce (Jack Irish) and Peaky Blinders’ Charlotte Riley.
“Steven really wanted to examine humanity in its rawest form and to take the expectation of the book, subvert it, and actually make it about the world that we live in,” Serkis says. “I really truly think that audiences won’t have seen anything quite like this. It is not particularly for young children – tonally it’s more suited to a slightly older audience, I would say 12 years old and above.”
Serkis says his portrayal of the Ghost Of Christmas Past is very different to the norm.
“He’s normally portrayed as this affable kind of friendly Santa Claus character who takes Scrooge back to an early part of his life where things were happy,” he says.
“But in this version he’s much more confrontational. He is going in there to examine Scrooge’s soul. He’s got a red hot poker that he’s trying to press against his conscience in order to get Scrooge to come out of his denial of who he is.”