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Matthew Cottle's transformed Scrooge leads te cast in a Christmas carol. Pictures: Ellie Kurttz A Christmas Carol Birmingham Rep **** Scrooge. The very name conjures up images of ragged children begging in Victorian snow blown cobbles, cold, gloomy chambers with underpaid, underfed, undervalued clerks scratching a meagre living and old Ebenezer, still hard at work late on Christmas Eve almost apoplectic at the thought of losing a day’s business to the worthless, wastes of Christmas Day . . . all in all it provides a terminal case of humbug. Dicken’s classic tale has also provided no end of film, TV and stage adaptations over the years with this Mark Gatiss adaptation filling the Rep over the festive period and New Year with Scrooge’s ghosts, his miserable and miserly life and his eventual redemption on a cloud of goodwill with a hint mortal fear. And we are guided through the tale by our narrator played in splendid storytelling fashion in smoking cap and jacket by Geoffrey Beevers. Which brings us to Matthew Cottle’s Ebenezer Scrooge, who is a real miserable old git if we are honest, Scrooge that is, not Matthew. He squeezes every last farthing out of everything he can lay his clutching hands on and sees expending well and hard earned cash on anything beyond breathing as an obscene and pointless frippery. You suspect only carbon dating could estimate when he last spent any money that anything that wasn’t absolutely, life or death, necessary. We open with him working with his equally parsimonious partner Jacob Marley in a brief appearance, at least alive, by Rufus Hound. Marley deciding to cut costs on things like living by deciding to meet his maker, or probably chief accountant in his case shuffling off his mortal coil over his latest ledger entry. This being after the pair had decided to cut their clerk, Bob Cratchit’s pittance of 15/6d a week (ask Grandad) to ten bob (Grandad again). Scrooge, incidentally, left the sign of Scrooge and Marley on the wall outside the office presumable to save the cost of replacing or altering it. A clever touch, incidentally, to quietly change it to Fezziwig when he visited them in his past life . . . Oscar Batterham’s Cratchit suffers from a permanent case of chronic goodwill, drinking toasts to his unscrupulous employer much to the chagrin of his family, especially his wife, played by Rebecca Trehearn. He seems far too decent and good natured a chap for his circumstances which provides a stark contrast to his wealthy, tight-fisted, curmudgeonly employer. Not that mattered one jot to Scrooge who heads back to his lonely, cold, gloomy pile for a warming bowl of thin lukewarm gruel only to be disturbed by Marley who is condemned to trudge through the world dragging the chains of his past life behind him, each link a transgression he had committed.
The Cratchit household determined to celbrate and enjoy their frugal Christmas while Matthew Cottle's Scrooge and Mark Theodore as the Ghost of Christmas Present look on With a ghostly light and echo on the voice it is quite effective, although doesn’t seem to impress Scrooge as much as it should have done – but then again we knew what was going to happen. Scrooge is told of three ghosts and one chance to change his fate . . . OK, probably a bit of indigestion causing a minor hallucinations was his explanation . . . but he was a bit more impressed when the Ghost of Christmas Past popped up in the shape of Grace Hogg-Robinson, bringing a fresh, younger charm to the role, as we go back to Ebenezer’s school days. He was the one abandoned at school in the holidays when the rest of the pupils went home for Christmas. It is also where he joins the firm of Mr Fezziwig, who holds famed Christmas parties for his staff. That’s where he meets the young, avaricious Marley . . . and where he falls in love with Belle, and where Belle, in a telling performance from Kalifa Taylor, works out his true love is money, something he finds hard to deny, ending their burgeoning romance. The came Mark Theodore as the jovial Ghost of Christmas Present where Scrooge sees the Cratchit household enjoying, even delighting and making the best of their poor Christmas, and we first come across the Cratchit’s disabled son Tiny Tim. Scrooge also visits his friendly nephew Fred, who invites him every Christmas and feels sorry for his uncle – and he hears some rather pointed and honest home truths from Fred’s family. Finaly the Ghost of Christmas past and the death and funeral of unmissed and unloved man. No prizes for guessing who that is. Fear is a great spur and we see a new Scrooge handing out cash like samples in a supermarket promotion and sending some young lad off to buy a turkey the size of a small ostrich to send to the Cratchits - a turkey which could well be a cousin of Rod Hull’s Emu, all it needed was an arm up the . . . but back to the story. If anything Scrooge seems to have been given an overdose of goodwill, mixing unbridled generosity with equally unbridled jocularity – but who cares, it is Christmas after all, and in these dark times we need all the goodwill we can get including a splendid rendition of O, Come All Ye Faithful by the entire cast thrown in for good measure. As it is this is a very watchable adaptation with a large ensemble cast on a lovely towering set from Paul Wills, with its piles of files and ledgers, moveable trucks and a dim but effective video wall at the rear from Nina Dunn for PixelLux. It is all enhanced by Philip Gladwell’s effective and inventive lighting and some spectacular sound effects from Ella Wahlström who also does a super job to balance the Rep’s not always helpful acoustics. Incidentally, Birmingham has a special place and unique link with A Christmas Carol, which was first published in 1843. Ten years later, on 27 December 1853, Charles Dickens give his first ever reading of his novella in a three hour performance at Birmingham Town Hall to raise funds from the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Scrooge will be seeking redemption to 05-01-25. Roger Clarke 20-11-24 |
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