Writer and Director: Jack Fairey
Part of the treat of coming to see A Christmas Carol at Boston Manor House is the fabulous setting of the Jacobean house itself, newly restored thanks to Lottery funding. The performance takes place in the gorgeously atmospheric State Drawing Room. It’s only a pity Boston Manor House doesn’t yet have an alcohol licence: it would have been the perfect occasion for mulled wine and mince pies.
The show itself, presented by The Arts Centre, Hounslow, and written and directed by Jack Fairey, is a modestly genial venture. Four actors recreate Dickens’s famous story, here reimagined as a sort of mash-up between a radio play and a jolly Christmas concert. There’s lots of fun to be had with the foley artist side of things, the ensemble recreating the sounds of ringing bells, slamming doors and footsteps crunching in snow. The three women often break off to sing acapella versions of Christmas songs and carols, albeit in slightly strange arrangements.
But the conceit of its being a radio play gradually fades away, as actors don assorted caps and bonnets to denote character changes and the actors themselves perform their lines without scripts. There’s lots of merry banter between them and the cast enjoys deploying a range of accents. Things get changed. Here put-upon Bob Cratchit is unbowed by years of working for the sour Scrooge and reveals himself to be a chirpy character, happily giving as good as he gets. Jack Fairley’s script turns some male characters into female ones to some effect – Scrooge’s nephew becomes a niece. But there are some losses: Tiny Tim, for example, never gets his familiar Christmas lines.
The fact that it’s mainly played for laughs means the truly hair-raising scenes with ghosts are effectively neutered. So the spine-chilling graveyard scene in which Scrooge realises the new grave he is staring at is his own hardly registers. Nor are the separate appearances of the three ghosts genuinely chilling. This is a shame, given the venue so clearly lends itself to ghostly enactments.
Dominic Allen makes an effective Ebenezer Scrooge, with Heather Wilson, Sophie Spencer and Danni Ashby playing all the other parts as well as singing all the songs.
Runs until 24 December 2023
