It’s a classic Christmas tale with much of its impact and cultural references a part of modern society’s collective DNA. So, a chance to see A Christmas Carol on stage is always something I am going to say “yes” to.
Over three nights, just as the Christmas season began, Bedford School performed a version of Charles Dickens’ famous tale adapted by Karen Louise Hebden, and they put everything into it.
Before a single actor came onto the stage, the audience was treated to a perfect Dickensian scene of cobbled streets and ramshackle homes.
There were even chimneys pumping out ‘smoke’, supposedly from fires keeping the residents warm, all with a backdrop of London’s Tower Bridge to immerse the audience in the story’s setting.
Having seen A Christmas Carol performed many times before, both on screen, on stage, and even during an immersive lunch, I was excited to see how this performance would shape up.
It’s one of my favourite tales, but any nerves I had about how this production may turn out started to diminish as I scrutinised the set and concluded that if they had been this meticulous here, then perhaps the cast would be delivering something worthy of this much-loved tale.
Enter the narrators, who set the scene, it’s Christmas Eve and it’s been seven years since Marley, the business partner of the story’s subject, Scrooge, died.
There’s humour in their words and an obsession with snow, as they tell the tale of Marley and his mean ways, positioning Scrooge as a ruthless business owner with little joy in his life other than what he has for his business and the money it makes.
I hold my breath as Scrooge (Charlie Eggleton) enters, waiting for him to utter his immortal phrase. He has to get it right, he has to make us believe he is the twisted, bitter, angry and cold man Dickens wanted us to hate…
“Bah humbug!”
The anger, the bitterness, the gravelly scowl devoid of joy rings out across the theatre as Scrooge’s workers scurry around making sure they look busy, making sure he doesn’t have an excuse to dock their pay.
I relax. He’s nailed it.
One of the workers reacting in fear to Scrooge’s words is Bob Cratchit (Thomas Taylor), the poor, hapless man who works hard for his family and, despite living in poverty with a large family, one of which is very sick, exudes nothing but love and happiness, much to Scrooge’s annoyance.
After we’re introduced to these two main characters, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Marley who warns him that he will be visited by three ghosts to help him see the errors in how he lives.
Marley is sending the ghosts as a warning to Scrooge, so he doesn’t end up tormented in the afterlife as he is. The narrators set the scene well, this is not Marley in person, this is Marley’s ghost.
One can imagine how Victorian audiences received this moment, with their superstitions and intrigue of the afterlife. How can Marley be here if he had died? This must mean dark forces are at play.
Eggleton delivers Scrooge brilliantly as he fiercely battles with what he sees before him. He reacts with the fear and disbelief you’d expect, but also the arrogance that what he is seeing must (hopefully) be his mind playing tricks on him.
As many of us know, that is not the case.
As the story progresses, we see Scrooge’s life thanks to the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future.
We see a young Scrooge alone and rejected by his father but being welcomed home by his sister, who later dies giving birth to his nephew Fred.
A little older, we then see him spurned by his young love, choosing his business over her, and then later her happiness having found a man devoted to her.
As these ghosts show Scrooge how his actions have tormented him, the audience begins to see Scrooge in a different light. We begin to see that the bitterness saturating every fibre of Scrooge’s body is because he has had his own emotions torn and twisted at every turn.
A father who rejected him, a lover who left him, the one person who gave him happiness dying as she brought new life into the world. Scrooge is Scrooge because life made him that way.
But that’s not the full message Dickens wanted us to take away.
The ghosts don’t just remind Scrooge of the past, they show what is happening now and what might happen in the future.
We see his nephew Fred trying to defend Scrooge while his own family and friends talk of their hatred of his uncle, we see the Cratchits struggle with their spartan meals, as Tiny Tim (Seb Davis) gets sicker and eventually dies,
It’s these moments that have a profound effect on Scrooge who begs the ghosts to help him stop what they say will come to pass.
The ghost of Christmas Future reveals that Scrooge must not let the failings of the past control the future. He can break the cycle and be a force for good. He can release himself from his pain by bringing joy to others through kindness.
As Scrooge returns to the present, he is a changed man. “Boy, what day is this?”
“Why it’s Christmas Day, sir”
The first words of Scrooge’s new life. A Christmas gift like no other, a second chance.
Relishing the opportunity, Scrooge pays a young boy to go and buy the largest Christmas goose available, he then sets out to undo the misery he has caused.
He takes the goose to the Cratchits and announces a pay rise for his faithful assistant Bob. He wipes the debts of others as a Christmas gift and, for the first time since the audience met him, he smiles, as does the entire audience as we watch this magnificent conclusion.
But it’s not over yet.
Scrooge heads to his nephew’s house. He’d previously rejected an invitation to join them on Christmas Day but now he knows he need not suffer alone.
In complete contrast, Eggleton, turns the arrogant, angry, bitter Scrooge into an old man filled with sorrow, frightened that his own family will never forgive him. Of course, they do.
Original score
The collective cast delivered A Christmas Carol brilliantly.
Eggerton did indeed steal the show, his portrayal of a character who is still used to this day to describe someone mean, selfish or unfriendly was on point as he navigated Scrooge’s own emotions through anger, grief, sadness and eventual redemption.
But it’s not a one-man show, Taylor’s Cratchit showed a side of humanity that perhaps many of us can learn from too, that adversity need not affect the way we treat others or diminish our love for one another.
Taylor’s presence was bright, strong and full of the fatherly love you’d hope to see, none more so than for his sick son Tiny Tim who made the role his own and had the audience grieving for his supposed loss as much as his own on-stage family.
The ghosts too, the messengers of doom and hope, were utterly convincing. Marley (Will Hayward), Past (Millan Verwoert), Present and Future (Zachary Wasterfall), were portrayed perfectly, with the necessary terror, whimsy and authority needed to help Scrooge and the audience see what they needed to be seen.
This was indeed helped along by excellent lighting that gave the ghosts, when needed, an ethereal and unnatural presence. A feast for the eyes that was expertly aided by a chilling original score, composed by schoolboy Angus Timmins and played live.
All in all, despite worries that there were indeed big shoes to fill, I loved this production. The cast had done their research and got under the skin of the characters, helping to keep the tale going for yet another generation.
In our household, A Christmas Carol is a bone of contention as it’s on the curriculum for English GCSE, so it’s perhaps not discussed with as much love as one might hope.
But, that’s ok. Rarely can anyone say a book they studied at school was loved by the student at the time, but as we get older that does change and A Christmas Carol, I am sure, will be no different.
Much of my early experiences of the tale were purely for entertainment, but as one gets older the messages become clearer and the performance of the cast in this production shouts them loudly.
We can choose to let our experiences make us bitter and twisted or we can do something to break the cycle and create love and happiness for those around us.
This is a message that perhaps may have been easier to deliver in Dickens’ day, things seem more complicated in the modern age as we learn more about how individuals might often struggle with life.
But, even back then, Scrooge needed help to find happiness and that’s, for me, the main message.
A Christmas Carol isn’t about forcing a mean man to become kind, it’s about helping a misunderstood, miserable man find happiness so he wants to be kind.
This message from Dickens therefore remains true today.
If we all stick together, help each other when needed and try to always act with kindness, then even a real Scrooge can make the most of a second chance.
The reviewer was gifted two tickets
as part of the review process.
Transparency statement: the reviewer has a personal connection to Bedford School
