A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Guildford Shakespeare Company)*****

 

By Emma

Link: https://www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk/a-christmas-carol £20

Available until: The final livestreams are on 30^th December at 3pm and 7.30pm

I really enjoyed this production of A Christmas Carol. It is a really good dramatization of the story by Naylah Ahmed and the performances are so good.

It’s done on Zoom so the characters aren’t actually together but the way the screens are pushed together kind of makes you forget that. Some of it is filmed in outside locations and it looks like there is real snow. If you watch it on Zoom you can either have your camera turned on or off but if yours is switched on, watch out! The Fezziwigs will get you on the main screen and make you dance! It’s great if you’re into that but not everyone is. Remember to mute yourself too and stay muted!

At first, I thought Natasha Rickman's production was going to be a comedy version because the opening scenes are so funny. But I think the writers were being quite clever. Scrooge is really rude and grumpy in these scenes but it’s hard to hate him too much when the scenes are making you laugh. It’s nice the actors are having fun too.

Scrooge also uses hand sanitiser because he has a cold (and that wasn’t just made up for COVID, it’s mentioned in the book). But the hand sanitiser is obviously especially for the pandemic and so are all the references to being three yards apart. I think it’s good to include it (and maybe it gets Scrooge more sympathy?) and it also makes it natural to have no physical contact.

The charity collector is a patronising do-gooder though! I would be so tempted to send her away with nothing and then make a donation online instead. But Scrooge probably doesn’t have the internet, even if he does have hand sanitiser. The hand sanitiser is probably one of those things where you have a story set in a certain time but there’s just one thing that’s out of place – but for some reason it’s brilliant.

The comedy beginning also make the ghost scenes more of a shock and even more scary. Jacob Marley is usually really creepy looking but this Jacob Marley looks normal and quite handsome. So that makes it even creepier when you heard the voice he uses as a ghost and see the chains. He doesn’t look like some sort of spirit, he looks like a human. But he doesn’t sound like one.

All the ghosts are really good. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a silent hood like he usually is (I actually wish productions would do something different) but the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present are played by two really famous actors. Penelope Keith is the Ghost of Christmas Past and she’s very elegant and refined and says her lines really beautifully but you really wouldn’t want to cross her.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is Brian Blessed! He is very over the top and jolly, which is very Brian Blessed and it suits the character really well too. But right at the end, the mood changes and he goes almost into black and white and Brian becomes so ominous. He has a reputation for always being Brian Blessed but I think he is a  very good actor. ‘Subtle’ isn’t really the first word that comes to mind what you think of him but I think there are subtle things in his performances and that’s why he’s more than just a big presence who makes a lot of noise.

The other actors play several roles and they are all really good. Robin Morrissey is really handsome and loveable as Bob Cratchitt (he’s quite spirited with Scrooge but he’s a really caring dad) and great as Fezziwig but he is terrifying as Jacob Marley.

Paula James is hilarious as the charity worker, especially as she puts so much warmth into her other roles, particularly Mrs Cratchitt. Lucy Pearson is a lot of fun as Fred and Belinda but she can do serious and romantic too, when she is Belle, it really feels like Belle breaks her own heart as well as Scrooge’s. There were three ensembles playing the children, I think I saw the Ivy Ensemble but they were all really good. Emmeline (no surnames for the kids) plays Fanny and she is really sweet and very talented.

But the production is mainly about Scrooge and Jim Findley is really good. He actually doesn’t seem as awful as he usually does. His performance really seems to support the idea that Scrooge has forgotten how to be happy, that he’s thrown himself into his job and ignored everything else and (like too many people right now) he has become emotionally isolated from other people - and from his emotions too. Throughout Jim’s performance, you can slowly see more of his personality breaking through as he starts to remember the love he used to have for other people and develop love for people he’s probably never thought about as people and at the end he’s just so lovely. It’s also not at all soppy which I think a lot of people would appreciate. I don’t mind if things are soppy but a lot of people do.