This highly festive adaptation of Dickens's A Christmas Carol featuring miserly moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Eccleston) and his visitation of three Christmas spirits plays at the Old Vic for its seventh successive run.
No surprise then that this production is a full-on Victorian Christmas experience, from mince pies offered upon arrival to shaving foam snow and swinging lanterns releasing clouds of smoke into the space.
Matthew Warchus’s production transforms the Old Vic into a dingy Victorian backwater somewhere nearby in East London, with a walkway that slices right through auditorium, creating an immersive experience as the cast brush past the audience in their floor-length black garments as if marching towards a funeral. Special mention to the ghost of Jacob Marley (Andrew Langtree), who literally pulls his chains of purgatory behind him as he drags along the pathway to confront Scrooge.
Simon Baker’s sound design is brilliantly simple yet atmospheric, as large metal frames stand in to represent doors that slam shut and lock with a loud clink against foes. Hugh Vanstone’s lighting is a triumph, as coal-black Victorian lanterns hover overhead, lighting the stage like a carpet of stars swaying to and fro.
The production may only touch lightly on the tale's background of rampant poverty in Victorian London, but it still digs deep emotively, masterfully balancing out gloom with an air of festivity and optimism. "I wish it was Christmas Eve,” whispers my junior reviewer, and I know what she means.
Christopher Nightingale’s beautiful arrangements of carols can be heard from every angle of the theatre. Look up and voices drift down from the top of the amphitheatre as if the angels themselves had been called to sing. Snow falls, voices croon and the spirit of Christmas envelops us despite the bleak cautionary tale full of ghosts and moral platitudes.
The acting is superb. Scrooge is played by the fiery Eccleston who is utterly convincing as the miserly loner proffering furrowed brows, piercing blue eyes and hoarse voice. Dramatic change from the detestable to the lovable only happens through a series of visions and voices from the past, confronting his errors through the memories of those he once loved.
Warchus and writer Jack Thorne successfully pull out the pathos in the story by focusing on Scrooge’s horrific, abusive father as the sole destructive force in his life, while his poignant relationship with sister Little Fan, played tenderly by Rose Shalloo, is the source of all good and positive redemption.
This all conspires to cause heartache and empathy before we can hate the man irredeemably. Then the story of unrequited love, beautifully etched by Frances Mcnamee, brings a deeper understanding of Scrooge’s backstory and how he travelled so far into the depths of depravity after such a promising start.
As Scrooge finally comes to his senses, joy overflows in chaotic, squeaky, jumpy, thrilling mayhem as the penny drops that Christmas Day can be spent offering kindness towards others. Scrooge may yet live to change his fate on earth.
From then on in, the stage is a full-on fiesta. Actors wear party hats and colours change from dour greys and blacks to rainbow joy. The Cratchits’ Christmas dinner literally flies down the aisles on a pulley system, while cakes, jellies and strings of sausages pass across the audience to build an atmosphere of collaboration.
It’s a great theatrical device to engage the audience to become part of joyous celebrations. We are all responsible for helping the less fortunate, and behind the fun of throwing plastic cakes around under a layer of fake snow sits a beautiful message. If people come together, change is possible and life might just be a little less gloomy.
On that note, Eccleston ends on a plea to support food bank charity City Harvest London, and with recent reports of poverty on the rise, there is no better time or setting to dig deep and donate.