A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic

The stunning interior of the Old Vic, with the audience surrounding a cross-shaped wooden floorboarded stage, is lit atmospherically with hanging lanterns. Bell ringers in long black Victorian coats and top hats strike up friendly chitter chatter with arriving guests as they take their seats. Then all falls quiet as they start to ring the bells in perfectly choreographed timing.

And so begins Jack Thorne and Matthew Warchaus’s annual retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, a story so well known there must have been few present hearing it for the first time, save the youngest of audience members.

For better or worse, it’s a faithful adaptation, sticking to the familiar beats and dialogue. But within that traditional framework, it finds its moment of innovation, particularly in its creative flourishes, whether the recurring motif of the bell ringers, who bring together the ensemble cast at intervals to play the bells or erupt into glorious song, the doorways that pop up from the floor to signify different interiors or wooden boxes that stack to form Scrooge’s office and desk, the use of the lanterns that swing from the rafters and transport us to different eras, or the delightful flakes of snow that fall from the sky to lightly dust theatregoers’ hair. There’s even a dash of audience participation when a feast is prepared, with all manner of pies and puddings and sausages to be passed down from the back seats to the awaiting actors.

This staging also cleverly finds levity and unexpected moments of laughter on what can otherwise be a bleak undertaking, mostly thanks to Christopher Eccleston’s exquisite comic timing that pings off his fellow cast seamlessly. In fact, it is Eccleston (the now-nearly 60-year-old Northern actor who has graced our big and small screens for decades, from Gone in 60 Seconds to Doctor Who) who invigorates the character for a modern audience: this is an Ebenezer Scrooge with whom you readily empathise as the incarnation wears on, particularly conjuring his dark past of abuse by his father, the words “these are the bricks that built you” hitting differently in a world where past traumas are better understood.

Eccleston himself has been open about his own struggles with mental health, and the depth of emotion he delivers has an air of authenticity that catches in your throat. As his sturdy frame moves around the stage manically, draped in a pink dressing gown, his silver hair standing on end and eyes nearly popping out of his expressive face, attention is drawn more to him as a troubled man than an evil one, a fragile vulnerability simmering just below his surface aggression.

That’s not to say the play shies away from his nasty qualities, nor does it as a whole pull back from the darker moments, the appearance of “dead as a doornail” Marley and the subsequent ghosts of past, present and future delivering those obligatory bone chills. Moreover, there can’t have been a dry eye in the house when Tiny Tim passes.

You might sometimes question why we return to Dickens’s tale again and again. Particularly in an adaptation as traditional as this, which doesn’t seek to modernise or change it up in any significant way. But through the duration of watching it becomes clear: the journey it takes you on, the weight of meaning the words carry, are just as impactful in winter 2023 as in their first publication. It’s impossible not to watch Scrooge’s past decisions be brought before his eyes, each path he chose at every juncture, and not wonder which of one’s own decisions would hold up to such scrutiny.

While the elation of the closing act and Scrooge’s redemption arc are undoubtedly sentimental, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by the message and spirit the story carries, and Eccleston comes into his own as the cloud of pain and trauma expressed as ruthlessness and anger lifts, and he is able to unburden himself of that which stops love from entering or leaving his heart. His childlike joy as he skips across the stage amidst all manner of song and dance is nothing less than contagious for his fellow cast and audience alike.

After the play’s finale, Eccleston in his natural Mancunian tones then gave a touching speech about the state of child hunger in the UK, asking for donations from the spectators as they leave; a rather stark reminder that if for no other reason, Dickens’s classic remains relevant as our modern era is plagued by the same insidious greed and gap between rich and poor than it was more than a hundred years ago. If that doesn’t make you want to go into the world with a heartful of Christmas cheer and generosity, I don’t know what will.

Sarah Bradbury
Images: Manuel Harlan

A Christmas Carol is at the Old Vic from 11^th November until 6^th January 2024. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.