A Tale of Two Scrooges – A Christmas Carol in London 2020

A review of two London productions of A Christmas Carol in December 2020. One live, one online, but both full of Christmas cheer.

A Christmas Carol – Something For Everyone In London 2020

In 2020 we are all in need of some Christmas cheer. London, at least until it went into Tiers 3 & 4, was very obliging. Not one, not two, but at least three productions of A Christmas Carol to choose from this year! There was one I didn’t see, which was at the Dominion Theatre. According to the Guardian, it was a ‘humdinger’, but not for ‘purists’. I once left during the interval of a production with Jim Broadbent because a) he didn’t know his lines yet and b) they had strayed too far from the wonderful original text, so I am very much in the purist category. Maybe just as well I chose two different Christmas Carol productions then!

Thankfully, even with such a plethora of Scrooges to choose from, the calibre was high this year. The ticket purchase I have been most excited about this year was to see Simon Russell Beale take on the role at the Bridge Theatre. Imagine how happy I was when I found out that my ticket, randomly purchased for the 4th of December, was now going to be opening night after Lockdown 2.0. Jacob Marley’s ghost must be looking out for me. I have to say though, I had lost a little faith during the dark days of lockdown, so had purchased a ticket to watch the live stream of the Old Vic’s online-only production with Andrew Lincoln. In the event, I got to watch both, which gave me the opportunity to compare and contrast. The results are below.

A Christmas Carol 1: The Bridge

I loved this production so much! Under my mask I was beaming ear to ear pretty much the whole way through. There was nothing not to love about this version of A Christmas Carol. Simon Russell Beale was brilliant and got both the careless heartlessness and the humour of the character of Scrooge. The other two actors, Patsy Ferran and Eben Figueiredo, had such range that the multitude of other characters they played were all distinctive and very funny. The adaptation was very true to the original, but saw the actors shifting between narration and dialogue. It meant that all my favourite lines were there, so I heartily approved.

A unique but very effective touch in this version was having a puppet as Tiny Tim. Charlotte Neville designed him, and there were two more puppets designed by Paradigm Effect as Ignorance and Want. Tiny Tim was an absolute marvel. The way the puppet moves is so realistic and natural that you can almost forget he’s made of wood. And I guess a benefit of this approach is it means you don’t have to worry about adding a child into the social distancing mix.

My favourite part though was watching Simon Russell Beale. Having an actor of that calibre play Scrooge is such a treat, and my absolute highlight character of the whole thing was Beale playing ‘the plump sister’. He made Scrooge’s journey to Christmas redemption very believable, which is so important in staging this work. How fortunate to have picked my dates right and have been able to see it.

Salterton Arts Review’s Rating: 5/5

A Christmas Carol 2: The Old Vic

So this was a different kettle of fish entirely. I had actually seen this production a couple of years ago with Stephen Tomkinson in the lead role. But I see A Christmas Carol about once a year (as a monologue by Simon Callow, one at Wilton’s Music Hall, etc. etc.) so I don’t remember them very precisely. Just a fuzzy warm Christmas feeling when I think back on them all. Anyway, the point is, I have seen this adaptation by Jack Thorne before, only live in the theatre instead of streamed.

The Old Vic do a good job of creating festive cheer when it’s in person. I remember clementines and mince pies being passed around, and there are some fun flourishes at the end which work very well in person. They have done their best to recreate this experience for an online audience. They send ideas by email to make it into a special evening, and have a background sound of a crowd before the play starts and during the interval. They even get some of the production crew involved to make it a little bit like audience participation.

Pros and Cons of the Online Format

Another thing I noticed the Old Vic does to ‘create value’ versus the many free online experiences that are available to viewers is to really go to town on camera angles and effects. I actually thought there was a bit too much of this. At times it felt like being on a work call with so many actors in split screens, and sometimes I just wanted the camera to pan back so I could see more of the stage. It did allow them to achieve pretty good social distancing though, which is good with more actors on stage than at the Bridge, including a child actor as Tiny Tim (Lenny Rush on the night we saw it).

Despite these hurdles associated with the online format, I did enjoy this version too. Particularly towards the end when Andrew Lincoln in the role of Scrooge became light-hearted, it was a lot of fun. (Earlier on I found he played it very angrily, which made his transition to Christmas-lover extraordinaire rather abrupt.) It’s not my favourite adaptation as I prefer my ghosts more traditional, but its social message is important. Hopefully many viewers will take up the call to audiences to donate to food charity FoodCycle. We forget that for some families, the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner doesn’t seem like Dickensian hyperbole…

The benefit of being online is that despite all the 2020 ups and downs in London and beyond, this version of A Christmas Carol could still be streamed as planned, with its final performance tonight. Check the Old Vic website for tickets if you fancy a classic Christmas tale repackaged to beam into your home.

Salterton Arts Review’s Rating: 3.5/5