"A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story"

Adapted by Mark Gatiss

An accountancy and appreciation of events

Written by Aaron Burley

As if it was meant to be, when the car that my family was driving down the motorway, heading towards Nottingham, there above our heads was the full moon. Shining brightly amongst the nocturnal sky, like a glowing blot of white paint amongst a sea of deep black tar. Clouds shifting and circling, the wind whistled cold, the bats squeaked and the omens of the world cried out in horrific unison as we arrived before the glass doors of the Playhouse to see Mark Gatiss’ (Doctor Who, Dracula, Sherlock) equally terrifying adaptation of A Christmas Carol. I love the book with all my heart. I once wrote a ten-page analysis of the damn thing for my English GCSE, it was ill-received, but still, to this day, I think I was robbed. I won’t be proving it in this “review” however, well, maybe just a little, a Christmas treat. Let’s delve into it, into the darkest, the coldest of Christmases, the Christmas when Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by four spirits who insist he change his ways, for his own good, and the good of all mankind…

Marley was dead: to begin with.

And on that sinister introductory line, inspired numerous twisting tales of terror and fright, for people tend to forget, that behind the festive cheer, messages of hope, happiness and invitations to be kind and joyous to your fellow travellers to the grave, the story of A Christmas Carol, is a ghostly one. It is a story of rattling chains, frostbitten cobbles and phantoms shaped like cruel tax-collectors, whose jaws have gone slack and arrive with deadly premonitions concerning their earthly partner’s demise.

Mark Gatiss has always been an inspiring one for me when it comes to his wickedly morbid interests, all it requires to see that passion is to watch any of his Doctor Who episodes, and to see it in a wider light, simply watch his version of Dracula - He has a way of bringing out the comedy and the horror in almost any story and mixing them together beautifully, and with the wondrous mind and magic of Charles Dickens at his side, he can perform terrific bouts of talent on the stage! Besides, if one were to read A Christmas Carol, they would know the dark humour found in the play, can also be found plain as day in the first few pages of the book - Marley was dead: to begin with - right off the bat, Dickens is having fun, playing with his audience before continuing to babble on about how dead he really was, and just how much of a cruel little creature Scrooge, that infamous miser, really is, and how much he had been forgotten by the kindness that would be very important later on.

Gatiss follows in these footsteps perfectly, introducing us, not just to Scrooge, performed by Nicholas Farrell (The Crown, Chariots of Fire), but also to Marley who is performed by the clearly multi-talented Gatiss. The introductory scene gives us a glimmer into how business is run at the firm of Scrooge & Marley on Christmas Eve, with Bob Cratchitt played by Edward Harrison (Doctor Who, Wreckers, Genius) being tortured by his two heartless bosses. The wicked jesting follows through when Marley, halfway through a conversation with Scrooge, suddenly grips his heart and dies. Scrooge, when noticing this, licks out the candlelight on his partner’s desk without a care in the world. Then we are promptly introduced to the Narrator, played by Christopher Godwin (The Dig, Emma) who, sitting in a chair surrounded by grim wooden filing cabinets and leather-bound books, darkly mutters; “Marley was dead: to begin with.”

A Christmas Carol has been done to death, so much that almost everyone knows the story, it’s never required anyone to pay much attention to anything made concerning it any more simply because of how easy it is to tell, and yet like all good adaptations; Gatiss does something different with the story, he perceives it not as a Christmas Story, but as a Ghost Story - the horrors of the book are brought to life, the ghouls and grouches fly around the theatre space as if they had truly broken up from the grass of their graves and breached into our land of safety. It is a spooky spectacle, embracing the restrictions and freedom of the theatre to an advantage, mixing the abstract with reality at any given choice, which lends perfectly to the oddness of the original book, falling through time upon the sleeve of a Ghost, watching the shadows of the past move by, while the hooded future points further onwards.

The spirits are all differently designed and hark true to the descriptions of the book. The Ghost of Christmas Past, portrayed by the eerie Jo Eaten-Kent (The Watch, Don’t forget the Driver), dressed in a shining white cloak, walking on their tippy-toes like an ethereal angel, taking Scrooge back into his childhood with a mature indifference, you can tell that this Spirit is wise and ancient, they seem stern but fair, like an elderly teacher looking down upon a child who simply does not know any better, which scares the young (for he is young, compared to the spirit) Ebenezer into submission, it breaks his cold exterior and he is forced to see the errors of his past.

The Ghost of Christmas Present, the jolly old elf that can become angry and deadly on a whim is performed by the delightful Joe Shire (The Tempest), this ghost carries a special type of charity, he brings Scrooge into what will soon become today’s Christmas morning, presenting Scrooge with what he is missing from his dark and shadowy home, while he is taking hours counting all the coins he refuses to spend, other people, his family and colleagues are taking minutes to spend very little money, for they are too busy spending time instead with one another, laughing and making merry. The Spirit, who is always laughing and singing, being happy and seemingly having a wonderful time exploring the streets of festive London, grows more ill over time, for he does not have a long time on this Earth, he passes Scrooge with a message that he should beware mankind’s children; Ignorance and Want, to beware them, as they will bring only misery upon him, Scrooge’s actions will kill those he dare not think about, but due to the Spirit’s teachings, he now can’t NOT think about them, those images will haunt him for as long as he lives, although depending on what Scrooge does next, will decide if that will be as long a time at all.

Our leading man, the infamous miser; Ebenezer Scrooge, is terrifically performed by Nicholas Farrell, who covers all the extremes of the solitary oyster's character - the book worm schoolboy, full of festive cheer and joy, slowly getting colder and colder as the Victorian London shapes him into a mirror opposite of his former self, retreating into a hunched over tax-collector, surrounding himself with filing cabinets filled to the brim of dusty documents with the names of his victims written in black ink, the ghost of his partner, Jacob Marley, ever-present within his life whether he likes it or not. Gatiss and Farell portray Scrooge as an easily scared man who is subtly angry at the world for being happier than he is right now, haunted not only by his late friend but by the festivities of the season that remind him what he cannot have - when Scrooge finally learns his ways when he is redeemed, it’s like years upon years of self-torture are lifted away, the chains that have forged across his life shatter into icicles, he is free to be joyous once more, the schoolboy emerges and his life can continue. Casting Farell was perfect, getting someone age-appropriate really helped hammer in the point of the book, that no matter how old you are, you are not lost, change can happen at any point along with the mortal coil, there is no excuse not to show happiness and share it among the masses.

Edward Harrison is a distant echo of Scrooge, Bob Cratchitt is what Scrooge had many chances to be along his life. Yes he is poor, but all the same, he is content with the life that he has been dealt, yes he wishes for more, yes he searches for opportunities for better things, but never for himself, only his family - he does not abandon Scrooge, for deep down, Cratchitt knows him more than anyone else ever has, he is spooked by the changes that his boss experiences on Christmas morning but he does not find it difficult to accept, taking him into his arms and welcoming into his home, inviting him to become a second father to his sick young boy, Tiny Tim portrayed by the absolutely spectacular Zak Ford-Williams.

Ford-Williams shows a unique side to Tim that I’ve never seen before, in most adaptations (including the Muppet version, which is one of the best) the character is an innocent and weak soul who can do no wrong. The version Ford-Williams and Gatiss have created is a cheeky little chap with a lot of wits, a smart alec yet still retaining the innocence that makes Tiny Tim so easy to empathise and feel sorry for without that being the only thing about him, this Tiny Tim is fun to watch on stage which tugs even harder on the heartstrings when you see his gusto vanish, his illness taking over, his sharp wit cut apart by coughs and splutters, not being able to carry himself to the dinner table, hardly being able to push out those famous words that ring out throughout any adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Without speaking about the superb writing of the play as a whole, I can’t possibly talk enough about Mark Gatiss and his interpretation of Jacob Marley, a character he has wanted to play for quite a long time now but never got the chance - so he decided to take matters into his own hands and I’m so glad he did. Jacob Marley has a much bigger role in this version of the story than others, he takes the role of a ghost and does it properly, he haunts Scrooge and his adventures throughout, taking shapes of various other characters before finally emerging out from under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, dropping the hood, and tormenting Scrooge above his gravestone. The scene where Marley is introduced in his apparition form, stepping out from the shadows, dragging chains across the floor behind him, is one of the first truly horrifying moments of the play, the use of an ensemble, lifting Gatiss up, depicting the eeriness of Jacob, his anger that Scrooge is refusing his help. You can see that Jacob has been through hell in his time since he died, and now he wants nothing more than to make sure his friend does not go through the same fate, he cares so much for Scrooge and yet hates what he has become - he hates that he himself took part in the creation of what Ebenezer is today, and perhaps the anger comes from a deep part of himself that he despises, he sees it in Scrooge and it’s frustrating to him just how much his partner takes the life he has for granted. Beautiful stuff.

The role of the Narrator in most stories is to be an audience surrogate, to deliver exposition and explanation to anyone in the theatre who might be paying more attention to a screen instead of the stage, the half-asleep children at the back who aren’t really invested in and need to be kept up to speed every five minutes. However, Gatiss has done something interesting, and beautiful, with this character we all assume to know down to the bone, when in actuality, is a person with so much depth and personality. For when they recite the words of Dickens, the words of A Christmas Carol, they are not reciting them to the audience, but to two small children are revealed at the very end of the show - the Narrator chokes up as he nears the end of the story, his attention is caught by a young woman calling his name.

“Timothy?” She says, tapping him on the shoulder with her hand, another gesturing towards a large Christmas banquet, where all of our characters sit, Scrooge included, “It’s time.” The reveal of the Narrator’s identity is such a unique aspect of this adaptation that adds so much to the original text, of course, Tiny Tim would be reading us A Christmas Carol, it makes so much sense! Mark Gatiss has found a way to tell a story that has been done to death, and yet this is proof that it still has some surprises tucked away in its dark and dingy places.

All in all, A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story is a wonderful addition to the many thousands of others of Christmas Carol adaptations, however unlike the majority of those adaptations, Mark Gatiss has created something unique and harrowing, it’s something different that explores interesting interpretations of the original story and its characters. It has something to say about the celebrations surrounding the holiday, and the cold winters that haunt them. This is a story that teaches us all how to keep Christmas well, may that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed...

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