Reviews

A Christmas Carol (tour – Worthing)

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25 November 2011

Take a theatre full of expectant families, only a month to go until Christmas, and one of the simplest and most recognisable tales that Dickens ever wrote – what could possibly go wrong? Well, in the case of this particular production of A Christmas Carol, the answer is – just about everything.

The first sign that there could be issues with the production happened before the curtain had even been raised, as there was more noise coming from behind it than there was from the entire audience. Loud conversations, laughing, coughing and some over-enthusiastic direction of the children in the production could all be clearly heard.

When the curtain did go up it revealed a simple but effective set. A great deal of imagination was needed for the street scenes, but the set for Scrooge’s office and for his bedroom certainly highlighted how bleak and cold his life had become. It is in the bedroom, at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve that the ghost of Jacob Marley appears.

On this particular evening he arrived through the fireplace with such force that many in the audience jumped and some even seemed concerned for the actor’s welfare. His voice is then blasted through speakers at a level, and with so many echoes, that it is almost inaudible, however, it was possible to hear the most terrible continuity error.

Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits, not during the course of the next three hours, but one will arrive each night for the next three nights. I may be being picky, but that takes us to the morning of December 28th before Scrooge sees the error of his ways.

As predicted, the spirits do indeed arrive and the tale unfolds with either music or Christmas carols used to link the many different scenes. Nice and festive though this is, on most occasions the music and singing are not sufficiently loud to cover the noise made by the stagehands, and the actors, behind the scenes.

The art of theatre is surely in the suspension of disbelief and, if this is true, then it goes a long way to explain why this production left many in the audience wanting.
Peter Amory fails to deliver as Scrooge. He is neither menacing enough to dislike, nor converted sufficiently in the final scenes to be likeable.

James Fulton-Smith – a young man barely into his twenties – works extremely hard but, at such an age, cannot convince the audience that he is really father-of-six, Bob Cratchett. He also doubles as Marley’s ghost.

There are many novel lighting effects throughout the piece, authentic costumes and, at the beginning of the second act, a courageously modern scene which made for a pleasant evening’s entertainment but, compared to some other productions of A Christmas Carol around this year, this one lacked its festive spirit.