A CHRISTMAS CAROL

**** (out of 5)

Royal George Theatre, 90 minutes, one intermission. Ends Dec. 22. By Charles Dickens. Directed by Ryan G. Hinds Adapted and originally directed by Tim Carroll

Penny-Lynn Cookson
Special to The Lake Report

What is not to love about this “A Christmas Carol”?

The house curtain presents a familiar scene: A snowy Queen Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake with its cenotaph, pharmacy and Court House.

Suddenly, there is violin and accordion music from the side aisles. Fake snowballs are being lobbed into the audience and thrown back to the actors.

Next, we are in a ‘Jingle Bells’ sing-along. The audience engaged and won, we are entertained.

And so began the Charles Dickens story of Ebenezer Scrooge, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint … secretive, self-contained and solitary as an oyster.” 

Countless versions and adaptations have continued to appear from silent films to talkies, to cartoons, musicals, plays and readings.

Scrooge has been a coveted role most famously and well played on film by Alastair Sim. Other actors have included Basil Rathbone, Ralph Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Albert Finney, Christopher Plummer, Jim Carrey, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart and Walter Matthau. 

Even Michael Caine had a go in “The Muppet Christmas Carol” gamely co-starring with Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit and Miss Piggy as Mrs. Cratchit.

We kept watching with “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” the Flintstones, the Smurfs, and Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in “Bah, Humduck!”

According to two Muppets in the 1992 film, “This is scary stuff. Should we be worried about the kids in the audience?”

“Ah, that’s all right. This is culture.”  

The kids in the Shaw audience were rapt.

Sanjay Talwar as Scrooge is less ferocious and terrified than some, but he is effectively grumpy and greedy, talking to himself, poking his head out of the bed curtains with “Bah, Humbug” before falling asleep repeating “money, money, money.”

Jay Turvey is solid as Scrooge’s downtrodden clerk, Bob Cratchit, as is Jenny L. Wright as Scrooge’s long-suffering servant, Mrs. Dilber. A cheery Marla McLean sparkles as Mrs. Cratchit.

The sounds of clanking and wailing introduce the headless ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner, Jacob Marley, who frightens the bejabbers out of Scrooge.

Marley is condemned to roam the world unfulfilled as his rapacious spirit never left the office. He comes to warn Scrooge to change his self-serving ways before it is too late and that he will be visited by three haunting spirits representing past, present and future.

As the spirit of Christmas Past, Tara Rosling is the gentle young Scrooge holding holly, playing ball and flying freely through the air on a swing. Scrooge suffers the pang of boyhood remembrance.

Shawn Wright as Christmas Present is a big, bold festive spirit who shows the disdainful Scrooge how the families known to him unite to celebrate Christmas with warmth and love. He also exposes to Scrooge the impoverished horror lived by the children of ignorance and need.

A giant white ghost appears as the spirit of Christmas Future. He leads a trembling Scrooge to see what lies in store for him. He is mocked, unmissed and unmourned by all and shocked to see his headstone in a neglected gravesite. 

Scrooge is transformed, becoming a model of sensitivity, kindness and generosity welcomed by family, friends and community.

The delight of this production owes much to its buoyant, genuine performances, fine direction, imaginative minimalist staging, creepy sounds and lively puppets — except for a limp Tiny Tim best represented by his crutch.

“A Christmas Carol” continues to enchant audiences. Its success was instantaneous. Written in six weeks by an anxious, cash-strapped Dickens, it was published Dec. 19, 1843, and sold out by Dec. 24.

Thirteen editions were printed the following year. Dickens subsequently enjoyed giving public readings as he toured Britain and North America bringing him further acclaim and financial security.

Dickens was a Cockney visionary in a London built on power and money, trade and commerce. His strong London sensibility of time and place enabled him to harness and express the energy and theatrical variety of pantomime, magical fantasy, tragedy and comedy. 

Christmas pantomime was an art form in Victorian England. It contributed to the Christmas we celebrate with carols, cards and the Christmas tree, the Tannenbaum, from the German Yule, brought to Windsor Castle by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband.

Dickens was obsessed with time and punctuality, a central fact of London’s social and economic life. The Christmas spirits each arrive at precisely 1 a.m. as Scrooge checks his clock.

Dickens said of himself that he was only interested in tomorrow, never today. Yet, we can’t understand the present without the past and as both are present in the future, may we continue to enjoy “A Christmas Carol” well into the years to come.

Penny-Lynn Cookson is an arts and culture historian, writer and lecturer living in Niagara-on-the-Lake.