A Christmas Carol @ The Bridge Theatre, London

A three person telling plus a puppet and all the packing cases you could ever need. Unexpectedly — Christmas jumpers!

At Christmas time, tis the season to watch or even read A Christmas Carol. Some head off to sing along with Muppets, some to the jollity of parachuting sprouts and jigs that is the Old Vic version, some to the Rose Theatre, some to the Dickens Museum (in-person or livestream) and some to the Bridge Theatre. The Mark Gatiss version can be viewed or streamed on BBC! This version is at the Bridge Theatre, featuring Simon Russell Beale as Scrooge, Eben Figueiredo as the wearer of a natty waistcoat and many accents and Lyndsey Marshal as everyone else.

Almost too twinkly to be Scrooge, Russell Beale soon puts you right by his ‘humbug’. Most of the action is done using an animated backdrop, clever lighting and a hidden wardrobe inside the packing cases. Be prepared for a dramatic appearing of Marley’s chain bedecked ghost. The packing cases double up sinisterly to create Scrooge’s gravestone too.

As is common now, gendered roles are reversed so Marshal becomes Bob Cratchit hunched over a not-warm candle (giving very 2022 vibes) and with a aid of a swishy apron, Figueiredo becomes Mrs Cratchit. Whilst I get the playing of traditionally male roles in Shakespeare by women, I’m not sure what a bearded Mrs Cratchit or a female played Bob Cratchit give us here, though they do play all the parts very well. If anything it makes what is a castigating social morality tale calling us out and shaming us into a pantomime and perhaps more farcical than it should be. Having watched The Man Who Invented Christmas we really shouldn’t, I feel, try to hide Dickens social anger in a nice comical drama. A Christmas Carol is anything but ‘nice’.

Tiny Tim as puppet, mostly voiced by Russell Beale, works well and adds some pathos to proceedings. Amusing too are the dance moves (not as energetic as the jigs of the Old Vic) at the Fezziwigs party and by the end we are definitely vibing with Scrooge’s nephew. Best of all was an unscripted moment when Scrooge couldn’t get into his jacket due to a stuck sleeve and needed assistance — to a round of applause once the sleeve was smoothed and he was in! An equal struggle was the surprise production and lobbing of Christmas jumpers at the end, when Scrooge struggled to get in again and eventually won the battle of the sleeve.

The strengths here are the quick changes, Eben Figueiredo as the nephew (getting the audience to admire his waistcoat!) Scrooge as his younger self recalling the fictional characters of his imagination who kept him company during long and lonely school days; Eben Figueiredo as an opulently robed Indian ghost of Christmas Present (though he does head towards Mr Khan/Goodness Gracious Me comedy territory too often here) and an equally excellent boy in the street accosted by a shouting Scrooge from his bedroom window on Christmas Day. Nicely modernised moment!

With a flash of a bonnet and the whirl of a shawl, Lyndsey Marshal becomes myriad characters. Simon Russell Beale overcomes his cuddly nature to present us with Scrooge going on a journey of discovery — his relief at being back in his own bedroom is palpable. Another good element was in the inclusion of the lighthouse scene, which normally gets cut — Scrooge observes another happy celebration of Christmas to touch his heart and conscience.

Not as terrifying as the Gatiss version, and not as energetic as the Old Vic version, the strength here is in including bits of the story which normally get cut (if the man cleared of debts had been included too, we could have had a full fat Scrooge!) and in Scrooge’s own personal journey. I also enjoyed the stripped down version rather than a costumed cast of thousands. What fun there is in seeing Scrooge wind up Cratchit who is late and clearly the worse for wear on Boxing Day. Though I’m not sure much matches the exuberance and nastiness of A Muppet Christmas Carol — (the bed curtain thieves are terrifying there).

Simon Russell Beale just isn’t nasty enough to be as ‘solitary as an oyster’. but his emotional and spiritual thawing is something and he wears a nightcap terrifically well. God bless us everyone and Merry Christmas!