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Time Out - A Christmas Carol Review
by Robert Shore
Now here’s a neat idea for injecting a little fraîcheur into a stale seasonal staple. In Ray Shell’s impressive cast-of-thousands (well, 20) production, Dickens’s classic tale of Christmas humbuggery overcome is performed as a play-within-a-play, the performers (explains the programme) being drawn from the students of a British school in Jerusalem and members of their neighbouring community. The multicultural actors thus perform amid school chairs and against a backdrop decorated with a range of religious symbols (including, ho-hum, the ancient Indian symbol of the swastika – an unfortunate piece of provocation).
The play-within-a-play device is a neat idea, although the containing drama – concerning the multi-faith Jerusalem actors – is never satisfactorily elaborated: Piers Beckley’s script is a few scenes short in that respect. Other non-traditional elements include the fact that Edward Kingham’s intense, psychologically dense Scrooge (principal prop: a toothpick) is given to headbutting beggars.
As Scrooge is led in time-honoured fashion through past, present and future by a trio of spirits, a large chorus of bystanders provide sound effects as doors are opened and closed (‘Lockity-lockity-lock! Irrrrrrgh! Slam!’), and sway and writhe menacingly as they chant something about hanging and killing (I don’t remember that bit in Dickens). At one point, the phrase ‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned’, repeated as a mantra, threatens to develop into a big song-and-dance number. What a shame it doesn’t – the choreography, by Donna King, is a delight.
www.timeout.com
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