Mr Charles Dickens Presents A Christmas Carol – Greenwich Theatre, London

Writer: Charles Dickens

Director: Peter Craze

There is some debate as to how many adaptations of A Christmas Carol adorn the London stage this festive season. The Guardian puts it at 9 and Time Out at 11. Other sources suggest 13. Setting aside the practical difficulties in calculating exactly what a sufficiency of the Dickens’ classic might be, it is worth reflecting on quite why it is such a popular show.

Most obviously its themes of redemption and warm-hearted togetherness resonate at this time of year. Perhaps just as importantly, everybody knows when they get to go home. When the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come makes an appearance, you can be fairly sure it is almost time to button up your coat and get ready to brave the city’s icy streets. There is a lot of precipitate buttoning-up at the Greenwich Theatre’s one-man reading of (an abridged version) of the novella. It is not just that the venue feels colder inside than out. The show, delivered at pedestrian pace by a bewhiskered and frock-coated John O’Connor, is painfully slow.

Dickens’ reading tours, some 400 performances mainly in the UK and America, earned him more money than all his novels combined. Mr Charles Dickens Presents A Christmas Carol is a recreation of one of these live performances, with the aid of modern sound design, back projections, and lighting. It is a good idea, albeit one that requires a central performer with the magnetic presence and power for characterisation that Dickens reportedly demonstrated.

O’Connor is manifestly skilled but never reaches those heights. The problem is that, like Shakespeare, Dickens’ prose sounds best when delivered at a sparky pace. Here the performer, presumably at director Peter Craze’s behest, acts out almost every word with the exaggerated movements, melodramatic facial tics, and evocative hand gestures of a 19^th century stage player. It looks great and may well have historical veracity, but for modern audiences it drags mightily.

The pacing is not helped by sound design from Matthew Eaton that is slavish in its interpretation of text. The prose demands winter bells, so we get them. It demands a squeaky staircase, and we get it. It requires the chiming of many clocks, and that we get. Viz., the banging of doors, clanking of chains, bolts shutting, horses trotting, fiddling fiddlers, carollers carolling etc. All technically impressive, but the soundscape rarely adds momentum to an already sluggish pace and would suit a radio play better. Perhaps a directorial decision to trust text and performer to communicate a sense of place might have helped.

O’Connor intones Scrooge with the cranky impatience of Alastair Sim’s 1950s screen version crossed with the shiftiness of Mr Burns from TV’s The Simpsons. He adopts an Irish American brogue for the ghost of Christmas past and broad Yorkshire for the ghost of Christmas present. Marley is indicated with a loud snort through the nose in advance of every piece of dialogue. Fezziwig comes with the sound of marbles in the mouth. Suffice to say the voices are not always subtle but at least we know where we are in the story.

The set from Tom Paris, tall cases that unfold to reveal a comfortable Victorian study against back projections of snowy London watercolours, is highly effective. So slow is the show you may find yourself counting the set’s candlesticks. The best thing is a tremendous lighting palette from Duncan Hands that cleverly evokes the ethereal presence of visiting ghosts.

Runs until 23 December 2022 at various venues in South East and London