Jim Broadbent may be the name driving
the box office for the biggest of London’s several
Christmas Carols this year – it is
his first stage appearance in a decade – but the show itself is
propelled at least as much by Samantha Spiro. Broadbent and adapter
Patrick Barlow go back a long way, to their 1980s collaborations as
two-man shambles the National Theatre of Brent. In that set-up,
Broadbent was the more intentional comedian; in
A Christmas Carol, however, even
when an adaptation such as Barlow’s raises the comedy level, Scrooge is
naturally the straight man in his own story. He eventually gets to
frolic and revel in his silliness once he is reborn as a kind and
considerate man on Christmas morning, but with the four spirits who
teach him the hard lessons necessary for this transformation, Scrooge
tends to be the butt, even for the sepulchral Ghost of Christmas Yet to
Come.
Spiro, in contrast, gets to dust off her excellent Barbara Windsor turn
(seen in the NT production
Cleo,
Camping, Emmanuelle And Dick and its film version
Cor, Blimey!) for an irrepressible
Cockney Ghost of Christmas Present, as well as taking the focus of
romantic sentimentality as the younger Scrooge’s neglected fiancée and
visiting all points between at assorted moments. Broadbent is the only
actor not taking multiple roles; the rest of the cast number but four,
plus a couple of puppeteers and props people.
Director Phelim McDermott and designer Tom Pye have captured the joy of
playmaking and storytelling. The stage is dominated by an enormous
cut-out Victorian toy theatre, with individual sets which turn like the
leaves of a book. Daft touches abound: when the Ghosts take Scrooge
flying through the air, the puppeteers adorn them with artificial legs
which appear to move with the dynamics of the flight, and when Scrooge
is returned to a scene of his rural childhood it is against the
backdrop of John Constable’s
The Hay
Wain. Towards the end the players even break the fourth wall and
acknowledge the audience; this element is only patchily successful, but
it is part of the motivating notion that we are sharing this tale and
are all part of the fun together.
Written for the Financial
Times.