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A Christmas Carol – Eastern Angles at the Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich

Reviewer: Michael Gray

Writer: Charles Dickens

Adaptor : Jake Smith

Director : Callum Berridge

Dickens’ “Ghost Story of Christmas” is a firm favourite on stage and screen at this season of the year. If you are inclined to suspect a surfeit of Scrooges, remember that in the months following the novella’s publication, you would have had a choice of no fewer than eight rival shows playing in London.

Eastern Angles’ new production has original music and a party vibe (Fezziwig your genial host) .But the original author’s social message is not forgotten, and is every bit as relevant today as it was in 1843.

Jake Smith’s fast-paced adaptation includes all our favourite moments from Dickens, plus some details rarely included in the theatre, like the lighthouse keepers, here located close to home in Orford. And of course Scrooge’s redemptive visit to the Cratchits for Christmas, almost obligatory in every script, but nowhere to be found in the original.

And all done with just four actors, plus two excellent children for Tim and Martha. We meet the young Cratchits first to the sound of a carol (“Comfort and Joy”), collecting for charity on Cornhill, a bridge between the story and the pre-show, which features warm-ups from characters Dickens forgot to write, but would certainly have recognized: newspaper seller (Felicity Sparks), blacksmith /ironmonger (Charlie Venables) and lamplighter (David Monteith) who lets us shine a light on the happiness and the hardship of a 19th century Christmas.

There are local links, too. Young Scrooge is at boarding school in Woodbridge. Another Ebenezer, Mr Goddard of the Ipswich Gas Company, inspires Scrooge’s heartlessness and his eventual social conscience; his son’s philanthropic foundation on Fore Street is part of the happy ending.

As is traditional at this address, we look across a traverse stage – Alison Ashton’s evocative set has the haunted counting house, with cubby-holes, drawers and ledgers, facing Scrooge’s mean bedroom. We see countless clever touches: Ignorance and Want are lantern puppets, the gravy boat is the ship, the metal goblets ring like bells. The office fireplace belches not only smoke but the spectres of Marley and his fellow chain-rattlers. The three spirits he foretells are a varied bunch – Christmas Past a radiant wraith, Present a “jolly giant” with huge hands, enthroned on the canopy over the bed, and Future a truly scary flame-eyed beast, prowling and growling round the stage. All of them variously manipulated and voiced by all the actors.

Scrooge morphs movingly from mean to merry in Ian Crowe’s powerful performance. Tellingly, he is also his younger self, reliving rather than observing Past, Present and Future.

The three other actors bring a vivacious versatility to the myriad characters in the story. The newspaper seller has nephew Fred as well as all the women, from Fan, to Belle, to Mrs Cratchit and Mrs Dilber, who, with the Blacksmith’s Old Joe, has the most Dickensian of David Barton’s original songs “What’s this?”. The lamplighter has the last word, and is also a spirited Fezziwig, and a splendid Christmas Present, flying over the city with only a lamp-post for support.

There is much jollity and audience involvement – lighting the lamps, the doorbell, party hats at Fezziwig and Son, the snowball finale. But the darker times are not forgotten, Tiny Tim’s absence [the Blacksmith a touching grieving father] Belle’s farewell to her fiancé. But love and goodness triumph in the end, as Scrooge has a complete change of heart and habiliments.

Callum Berridge’s production of this best-loved story is a triumph of invention and economy, two hours filled to the brim with Christmas cheer.

Runs at Ipswich until 5th January 2025, at Woodbridge from the 8th to the 11th January 2025

The Reviews Hub Score

Christmas Cheer

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The South East team is under the editorship of Nicole Craft. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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