It wouldn’t be Christmas without a production of Dickens’s glorious seasonal fable of hope and redemption, perpetually relevant and entertaining for audience members of all ages. Simon Callow’s one-man take on the time-honoured narrative of Scrooge, returning after successful runs in festive seasons past, is a treat, with an engaging storytelling style that means we are instantly drawn in.
Callow follows in the footsteps of none other than Dickens himself, who famously gave public performances of the novella. Dressed in modern day casual clothes and cutting an unostentatious figure, Callow sensibly keeps it simple. There are no flamboyant theatrical tricks in Tom Cairns’s production, but merely two stacks of fairylight-bedecked wooden chairs at the sides of an otherwise bare stage. From these, Callow can conjure up everything necessary and leave the rest to our willing imaginations.
One of the many benefits of this approach is that it allows us to hear afresh the wonderful vividness of Dickens’s incomparable writing.
Scrooge, we are reminded at the start, was a ‘squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner’. But that was before all the ghosts came to visit on that memorable Christmas Eve, and there are evocative shadows and darkness to accompany these visions. Scrooge’s soul may be saved, but it’s by no means an easy passage from lonely miserliness to family celebrations and the prize turkey.
Until Jan 7; Arts Theatre
