Writer: Clare Norburn
Director: Nicholas Renton
Christmas Eve 1869 and 57-year-old Charles Dickens (Clive Hayward) begins one of the popular, dramatic readings that brought Victorian audiences flocking to hear him. A group of musicians interrupts, and soon Dickens and the band are weaving an eclectic musical tale about the writer’s life. They recreate the well-loved pattern of A Christmas Carol with its three educational spirits. But the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present arrive in the form of Dickens’ wife Catherine (Karen Ascoe) and his mistress Nelly Ternan (Rosalind Ford), both movingly and economically brought to life.
The seven-strong cast are versatile. Ford plays the cello as well as embodying a series of young women with Dickensian connections. Alexander Knox, who plays young Dickens and the novelist’s son, adds violin music. The actors/musicians conjure up numerous scenes on an almost empty stage with just a counting-house desk in one corner. Hayward channels Dickens’ narrative flamboyance in familiar quotes from A Christmas Carol, like Scrooge’s line to his nephew that “every idiot who goes about with a Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart” or his insistence to Marley’s ghost that “There’s more gravy than of grave about you”.
Playwright (and singer/percussionist/producer) Clare Norburn has taken fragments from A Christmas Carol and stitched them together with snippets of Dickens’ biography, traditional carols, Tudor ballads, arias, shanties and Victorian parlour songs. There are two new numbers composed by the group’s excellent musical arranger (and keyboard player) Stephen Edis. One of these, Warren’s Blacking, is a jaunty advertising jingle for boot polish made in the factory where 12-year-old Charles Dickens was forced to work while his father was in debtors’ prison.
As Artistic Director of this theatre group The Telling, Norburn specialises in what she describes as “concertplays”. It’s an effective, pacy formula. The songs never drag. Once a few lines or verses have evoked a particular atmosphere, it’s on to the next scene. Director Nicholas Renton skilfully makes sure What the Dickens? rollicks along. The varied musical programme keeps up the emotional tempo, switching swiftly from poignant melodies to toe-tapping street songs and back via snatches of medieval folk tunes and dance-ready fiddle music. Pulsing chords from an accordion or keyboard represent a crucial train journey, and a single flatlining note lends an ominous undercurrent to a character’s collapse.
The serious moments are often lightened by comic fourth-wall ruptures: “That’s £3000 in today’s money”, the band spokesman clarifies near the start. Faced with the wordless Ghost of Christmas Future, Dickens fumes, “You know, it’s very annoying that you don’t speak at all. I must rewrite that.” These modern metafictional asides are part of a playful patchwork of references from across the centuries. The attempts to map Dickens’ own character onto that of his miserly creation Ebenezer Scrooge feel slightly clumsy, but, in general, this is sure-footed, entertaining theatre. With several seasonal greatest hits, including A Christmas Carol itself, plus a lively smattering of God Rest Ye, Wassail and Past Three O’Clock, this show makes for an engaging Christmas outing.
Runs until 30 November 2024 and then continues to tour
The Reviews Hub Score
Engaging Christmas outing
