The battle of the Scrooges is fast becoming an unofficial London theatrical tradition, as – for the third year – audiences must choose between the mince-pie-laden delights at the Old Vic and the atmospheric ghostliness of Ally Pally.
Jack Thorne’s spikily imaginative, sumptuously staged version has been winning hearts and minds since 2017, but in 2021 Mark Gatiss, king of the ghost story, began his bid for Dickens devotees with an adaptation that’s Christmassy and crepuscular in equal measure.
Since Gatiss’s deliciously ectoplasmic take is – comparatively – the newest kid on the block, it seems appropriate to consider his version first, but where to start? Should points be allotted to each production according to the spine chill factor of the ghosts, the narrative twists, or the pathos factor as Scrooge delves into the permafrost of his heart to discover a human being? Or should it be about something more elusive as our miserly anti-hero charts his path from bitterness to joy?
Certainly the ghost factor is as impressive as you would imagine at Alexandra Palace Theatre. Unlike at the Old Vic, Adam Penfold’s production employs an illusions designer (John Bulleid), whose influence is clear from the moment that the lights flicker ominously and Neil Morrissey’s Jacob Marley appears as if from nowhere. Grace Daly’s Ghost of Christmas Past is ebulliently bolshy with her plaits, short white dress and boots-with-attitude, while Mark Theodore’s Ghost of Christmas Present is like a pagan god with his sumptuous robe and horn of plenty. Best of all is the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, played once again by Morrissey, shrouded entirely in black layers as he points Scrooge towards his doom.
This is A Christmas Carol fully invested in making us feel the shiver of other dimensions. Yet it also needs to earn its credentials by casting fresh light onto the story of Scrooge, who’s played for a second year (his first run was in Birmingham) by Matthew Cottle with a compellingly repressed rage. Gatiss’s script includes a brief prequel where we see Marley alive and working alongside Scrooge in an office that seems more like a tomb. As the action progresses, we realise the extent to which Marley has been a poisoning factor in Scrooge’s life, turning him away from love and optimism to a life scavenging profit from other people’s debt.
Even with Morrissey’s enjoyably chilling contributions, it’s Cottle who steals the show as he allows us to sense the pain beneath his rage. We feel the depths of his despair when he sees his coffin and realises the emptiness of his existence, making the feeling of redemption all the more intense as he awakes after the final haunting to discover he has a second chance. There’s a lovely narrative twist at the end too that will bring a tear to most eyes. Paul Wills’ ingenious packing case set and Nina Dunn’s gorgeous snow-filled video designs provide the icing on this particular Christmas cake.
Eight years after it first played at the Old Vic, however, Thorne’s A Christmas Carol continues to punch well above its weight as a Dickens adaptation which – like the old Heineken advert – refreshes the parts that other adaptations cannot reach. This year Paul Hilton plays the hapless Ebenezer in Matthew Warchus’s ingenious production, and he rises magnificently to the challenge with a performance that goes from the cynically dyspeptic to the giddily rejuvenated.
Yet again the Old Vic is reconfigured for Rob Howell’s clever-as-a-box-of-cats set, with invisible doors that clank ominously shut (hat tip to Simon Baker’s sound design), money chests that slot into the floor, and a catwalk that thrillingly shows off the full extent of Marley’s infernal chains. Annie Wensak’s no-nonsense Ghost of Christmas Past in patchwork dress is enjoyably counterintuitive as a visitor from beyond the grave, while Kibong Tanji’s Ghost of Christmas Present is breathtakingly sinister with her dark glasses and take-no-prisoners revelations.
While the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come wins my prize for most chilling spirit of both productions – with its forbidding procession of black veiled figures - it would add up to nothing without a compelling psychological narrative. For me, the brilliant twist in Thorne’s script is to infuse it with the story of Dickens’ own relationship with his father, whose inability to manage his debt led to Dickens working in a factory at a young age. Since this essentially sparked Dickens’ determination to devote his life to raising awareness of the poor it brings a stringent reality to a tale that could all too easily turn sentimental.
Hilton is an engagingly acerbic Scrooge, and though he’s less well known than some of the actors who’ve taken on the role – including Rhys Ifans and Christopher Eccleston – he absolutely makes it his own. Before the visitations of the ghosts he’s petulantly cadaverous, but as the play progresses he’s masterful at showing the core of warmth and decency that informs him, not least when he’s rejected by Belle.
Alan Berry’s music direction as usual lifts the production to ecstatic heights, not least in the soul-style performance of See Amid The Winter Snow towards the end. Hugh Vanstone’s lighting design – in which scores of Victorian lanterns flicker ominously according to the shifting moods of what’s taking place below them – is utterly bewitching.
London is extraordinarily lucky to have two Rolls-Royce productions to choose from – both are worth the price of entry, and which you prefer will depend on personal taste. For my money the Old Vic just tips it this year – and that’s before we start talking about the zipwire turkey – but you won’t be shouting “Bah humbug” whichever one you go to.
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