A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story

Patrick Lay at The Rep Theatre, Birmingham – Wednesday 20^th November 2024

With the festive season on the horizon, what better a theatre production to review than Mark Gatiss' adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol, made all the more fitting to me as Dickens like myself was born in Portsmouth.

A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story is a cleverly adapted production by Gattis, which starts off with the main character Ebenezer Scrooge and his fellow cold hearted business partner Jacob Marley, offering no mercy to anyone they lent money to. Marley passes away on the job, and seven years later, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost, who is cursed by heavy chains he forged during his life.

Money is the route of all evils for Scrooge and Marley's ghost warns him of the consequences of his greed, meanness and lack of any compassion towards others. He also tells him he must listen to the further three ghosts (past, present and yet to come) over the next three nights to avoid much heavier chains of his own.

The show depicted the modest side of Victorian London superbly.  Whilst there was the austerity associated with Scrooge himself, there were some great one-liners which added comic relief to the story.  Both the sound and special effects used gave a real ghostly context to the production which added to the enjoyment further still.

There were various family scenes and love interests which formed part of the story, with other characters living humble and poverty-stricken lives.  Yet as so often is the case, they were the ones far more content than the Scrooges of the world.

When visited by the ghosts, there were many well-informed messages.  In one heart wrenching scene in particular, there is an almighty wake up call to Scrooge of how important it is for him to change his miserly ways. Thankfully this would all lead to a happy ending with what can only be described as a total personality transplant for the story's leading character.

As the name would suggest, there were a mixture of Christmas carols sung by the production cast which consisted of a mixture of adults and children which was engaging to the family audience.  In fact myself and my wife were sat next to the family of one of the young actors which must have been such a proud moment for them.

Running at The Rep in Birmingham until Sunday 5^th January 2025, I would highly recommend going to this production.