A Christmas Carol at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre – review

This winter, A Christmas Carol is outdoing London buses, with at least five different versions in Yorkshire, including two very different high-profile productions at Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Crucible, each appealing and successful, each emotionally satisfying, neither quite perfect. They both take a pretty similar approach to Dickens’ text; it’s what surrounds it that’s so different. Leeds’ unique selling point is the industrial background; at the Crucible, it’s the Sheffield carols and the inclusion of a group of invented young characters.

In terms of the carols, traditionally sung in the villages around Sheffield, they are a huge success. Some of them contain alternative settings for familiar lyrics, while others are completely unknown elsewhere. Re-scored by Matthew Malone, they make a huge impact from the very start with a stirring version of “Hail Smiling Morn” and later, the high spot of the Fezziwigs’ party is Mr and Mrs Fezziwig (Adam Price and Kimberly Blake, respectively) regaling us with the carol of “Six Jolly Miners”. 

A framing device of Jack and the juveniles has its moments, but can irritate at times, through no fault of any of the actors. Cast as Jack, a typically Dickensian older youth, Mel Lowe displays a consummate set of ringmaster skills in introducing the various stages of the Scrooge story, and the set of Young Company artists I witnessed effervesce with unaffected glee. Also, the inclusion of a sort-of-narrator gives Lowe the chance to fill in some of Dickens’ non-dialogue sections, such as “What happened to Scrooge afterwards?”

Ian Midlane is full of surprises as Scrooge. Displaying a sardonic wit at the start, he bears an unexpected resemblance to Ronnie Barker in Porridge. He refuses to accept any involvement in the scenes the spirits show him, becoming increasingly angry until he suddenly accepts his guilt. It’s in the ferocity of his breakdown and the giddy joy of his redemption that Midlane excels.

Blake adds a long-suffering Mrs Cratchit and a cackling Laundress to her Mrs Fezziwig, while Price has the most telling double of all: a jolly, then downtrodden Mr Fezziwig and the Ghost of Christmas Present, relishing his encounter with Scrooge. The young Ebenezer is an unlikely double with Bob Cratchit, but Ryan O’Donnell makes a fine pair, partly by presenting Bob as a more educated Cratchit than often appears. Nitai Levi registers as an underplayed, down-to-earth Ghost of Christmas Past.

Aisha Khan’s adaptation balances the traditional and the invented neatly enough. Rose Revitt and Kevin Jenkins’ colourful and stylish costume designs are set against their gloomy, several-storeyed structure with steepling stairs and ghostly windows, which leave the acting space free for Elin Schofield to mount a surprisingly mobile production.