By Emilia Brookfield-Pertusini
I hate tradition. I possess a bah-humbug approach to these supposedly ‘heart-warming’ events we must trudge through for time’s sake. However, I allow myself three indulgences, exceptions to the rule: 1) re-read The Secret History every December. 2) Listen to the King’s College, Cambridge choir carols on a blistering walk. 3)Watch a theatrical telling of A Christmas Carol. Upon hearing A Christmas Carol was descending upon Durham’s vastly beautiful wintery mood, I couldn’t help but be delighted (my student finance imposed tightfistedness, echoing Scrooge, in my refusal to see The Old Vic’s Carol this year). Upon watching, this elation hasn’t departed. Whilst Walkabout’s production doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat the obvious haunting and wrath that lies within this tale, the delicate adaptation of Dickens’ most recognisable plot, the craftsmanship of the design team, and the bravado of the actors cannot help but bring an audience to smile with pure, innocent joy. Lily Gilchrist and Harry Threapleton, the directors and adaptors, have marvelled in their sharp, poignant, and ultimately Victorian, to its truest sense, production.
The bustle of the stage works in A Christmas Carol’s favour well. To be moved by a cast, who stop, look at you, extend their arm and holiday wishes, before moving on, retiring in their own magical scenes elsewhere, that you are privy to, is a truly magical voyeuristic experience. All whilst a superbly talented choir is fully incorporated into the momentum of the play, embellishing the scenes with further tenderness. These Victorians manoeuvre around a set, designed by Carrie Cheung and her team, that strikes a careful balance between kitsch Victoriana, and haunting minimalism. With the names of cast members upon gravestones in the corner, and a hearty dinner setup in the other, the balance is struck brilliantly between the two moods of the story and is maintained as audience moves carefully between the two, savouring in each. Charlie (Cara Crofts), our dutiful tour guide of Victorian London encapsulates this boundless energy that possess us during such festivity. The bubbly nature of a character who drives the plot, and encapsulates the cultural artifice that Carol has become, was not lost; this is an actor who understood their role to their fullest potential and brought the Dickensian prose into startling, striking life. The now diffuse and diluted term of Dickensian is often misused, not in the case of Crofts however, who elevated the practical necessity of her character to a person an audience member was delighted to see shepherd us spritely and provide us with brilliantly timed witty asides.
Wit is often prescribed to Scrooge in order to make the shamelessly brutal character easier to digest. Gilchrist and Threapleton’s adaptation struck a considered balance with Scrooge, allowing Edward Clark to channel the disturbing miser to his fullest, whilst giving the audience moments of comedic breathing space, necessary to hammer home in the absurd, condemnable nature of Scrooge. Clark’s masterful performance delved into the psyche of such a miser at points, humanising Scrooge with pathos carefully being delivered in beautifully fraught and tender moments between Clark and his cast mates. Whilst I have often been considered as someone who enjoys the bleak moroseness that theatre can harbinger, Clark’s performance of a transformed Scrooge was simply too joyous to consider. The beauty of immersive theatre, I believe, lies in the fact the audience become less isolated, both from the actors and their fellow audience members; upon being shook by a contagiously gleeful Scrooge, I couldn’t help but smile, catching the same elation beaming out of Scrooge, and in my shock of being touched by both theatre and character, looked around to witness my fellow travellers through Victorian London beaming in the same manner. The strength of the adaptation of this complex figure, and the magisterial delivery of Clark, was something to behold.
Mark Gatiss remarks on how Carol’s “status as a ghost story has been somewhat undervalued”. This is shocking considering the Victorian preoccupation with ‘the other side’ yet cannot be said about this production; the consideration of lighting (Rory Collins) emulating the haunting necessity of the story thrillingly from the offset, despite not being utilized as fully later on. The introduction of our first ghost, by means of a howling metamorphosing doorknocker, confirms Carol’s status within the ghost story genre, with Raphael Henrion’s Marley being a startingly frightening, yet darkly humorous figure. Despite the script occasionally lapsing into the silliness that often grasps adaptations of Carol, Henrion managed to create a presence that channelled irksome impressions of the lost, tormented souls of Dante’s Purgatorio that Marley should be reminiscent of. The spectral reigns are then taken up by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Nell Hickson), who catapults us through the pangs of Christmas nostalgia with a foreboding deliverance. Her delivery and duplicity came into full force in her scathing departure from a relenting Scrooge, leaving both him and the audiences’ jaw on the floor. Bounding on stage after is Grace Heron as Present, emitting such a warmth onto stage it is hard to believe the phantom categorising of this being. A bountiful harbinger of news, we, like the marionettes cleverly chosen to physicalise the ghosts’ message, are caught up in the rapturous display of Christmas truths, forcing the message of change and charity to the forefront of the production; an understanding of the duality of this character, and the tale itself, was on full display. Finally, Future (Iphis Critchlow), who’s silent existence on stage sliced through the audience, allowed for the spectral potential of the production to be achieved in its completion. Each actor of this sinister quartet played with the audience’s perception of haunting, bring performances that kept the pace of the haunting at a constant revelry.
The whimsy and magic of the immersive experience embraces the auditorium, handling every aspect with such clear sensitivity. The Cratchits are, despite my fond revisiting of this tale annually, cause for contention; Tiny Tim and his family cawing in mockney Victorian poverty pomp behind him makes one cringe under the amount of Victorian ‘virtuous’ poor narrative and disability fetish typically on display. However, a refreshing, modern consideration for the family were incorporated against the Victoriana. The pity porn was replaced with a quintet of talented actors who handled their roles with care, creating tender scenes; their warmth on stage was something to behold, and the dynamic between Charlotte Walton’s Bob and Scrooge was masterfully handled without the usual retreat into caricaturist workplace abuse. Instead, the ignorant optimism reserved for them was wholly invested into the pompously cheerful Fred (Nemo Royle). Adorned in a perfectly festive turquoise blazer, we were captivated around the dinner table, whilst he stood on a chair, like a true festive host, to address us, his guests, into parlour games; whilst at points the character began to sentimentalise and err on the side of tangent, the gusto of deliverance was to be relished, and an invitation back to his table would be received wholly.
The playfulness of the novella is fully anticipated when, on sofa or on theatre seat, one sits down to watch A Christmas Carol, yet the unbridled, unrelenting imaginative magic is full realised when we’re invited into stand within the tradition of this tale. If only more people could be invited to spend an evening around a Dickensian Christmas tale, then perhaps this tale would not need to be told year upon year, as the cast, crew, and production team clearly understood in their adaptation the unfortunate poignancy of the charitable message, which, as Scrooge does in the final moments of the play, grips you. The combination of theatrical enchantment and spectral illusion ensures that Christmas magic is released upon all who enter into this glimpse of Victorian London. The fun, nuanced, and gripping production affirms why A Christmas Carol is a powerhouse of a Christmas tradition.