Английская Википедия:A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story

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Шаблон:Italic title Шаблон:Infobox playA Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story is a play based on the 1843 novella of the same name by Charles Dickens, adapted for the stage by Mark Gatiss.

Synopsis

On Christmas Eve, seven years after the death of his partner Jacob Marley, the solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge receives a visit from the ghost of his former partner. Fettered in heavy chains as a consequence for a lifetime of greed, Marley tells Scrooge that it isn’t too late for Scrooge to save himself from the same fate by changing his ways. To do so, however, he must first face three more ghosts.

Cast (original 2021 production)

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Mark Gatiss adapted the drama and appeared in it as Jacob Marley, among other roles

• Mark Gatiss as Jacob Marley/Old Joe/Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
• Nicholas Farrell as Ebenezer Scrooge
• James Backway as Fred/Young Scrooge
• Joni Ayton-Kent as the Ghost of Christmas Past
• Joe Shire as the Ghost of Christmas Present/Fezziwig
• Zak Ford-Williams as Tiny Tim
• Aoife Gaston as Belle
• Angelina Chudi as Caroline
• Christopher Godwin as the Narrator/Tim
• Edward Harrison as Bob Cratchit
• Sarah Ridgeway as Mrs Cratchit
• Renae Rhodes as child
• Lauren Tanner as child
• Esme Tchoudi as child
• Charlie Westlake as child

Production history

Nottingham and London (2021)

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Nottingham Playhouse by night

The adaptation was directed by Adam Penford, designed by Paul Wills with a lighting design by Philip Gladwell, sound design by Ella Wahlström, video design by Nina Dunn, movement direction by Georgina Lamb and composition by Tingying Dong.

The production was originally scheduled to open in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was eventually produced at the Nottingham Playhouse from 29 October to 20 November 2021 before transferring to the Alexandra Palace in London where it ran from 26 November 2021 to 9 January 2022 with a cast of 15 playing 50 characters. The production was filmed live for a cinema release during the run at the in London and received a cinema release on the 27th November and 1st December 2022 before it was shown on BBC Four on 25 December 2022.

Nottingham and London revival (2023)

The production will be revived at the Nottingham Playhouse from 28 October to 18 November 2023, before transferring again to the Alexandra Palace from 24 November 2023 to 7 January 2024. The production will star Keith Allen as Scrooge with Peter Forbes as Marley.

Differences from the novella

Similar to the Old Vic stage version, a scene is added in which a reformed Scrooge briefly reunites with Belle, the love of his life, who ended their engagement in their youth after he started to become greedy. The two exchange Christmas greetings before Belle parts ways with her family. Throughout the story, an elderly narrator tells the story. When speaking about Scrooge's change and how he came to embody Christmas, he starts to get emotional. The narrator is revealed to be an older Tiny Tim.

Critical reception

Giving the stage show three stars out of five, Arifa Akbar, the critic for The Guardian wrote,

Gatiss's script is surprisingly faithful, given his flair for imaginative reworks of canonical stories (from Dracula to Sherlock), and some dialogue is unchanged along with the words of the narrator (Christopher Godwin). This reminds us of the inherent theatricality in Dickens's storytelling, heightened with the use of puppets and some bewitching surprises such as a delightful cloud of ghosts that suddenly emerge and swing around the auditorium...

Some key moments feel too fleeting and don't carry enough emotion, including Tiny Tim's deathbed scene. But when the human drama slows down, it gains an emotional catch, such as a romantic pause between Belle (Aoife Gaston) and the young Scrooge, and the final scene between Scrooge and Bob Cratchit (Edward Harrison); we wish for a few more of these.

The end brings a clever twist and a great surge in festive feeling, with carol singing and general good cheer.

Mark Brown of The Daily Telegraph was rather more generous, giving the production five stars out of five. He wrote,

"While the production (sub-headed 'A Ghost Story') is utterly, and fabulously, theatrical, Gatiss has, as if in reverence to Dickens's original stage prose presentations, inserted a narrator (played as an all-knowing Cockney by Christopher Godwin). This storyteller enables Gatiss – who also plays the ill-fated ghost of Scrooge's former business partner Jacob Marley – to both dramatise the dialogue of the novella, whilst giving expression to some of the finest passages of Dickens’s prose...

The story that then unfolds is told by a fine cast of no fewer than 15 actors. The improbably versatile set is transformed into the various locations of Scrooge's nocturnal and spiritual journeys with the assistance of top-class video projections and superb stage illusions... ethereal ghosts fly over the heads of the audience by means of the simplest of puppet-making techniques. On the other, some very smart video work gives a spectacular visual dimension to the arrival of Marley's chain-clanking apparition.

See also

• Adaptations of A Christmas Carol