The nights are getting darker, there’s a chill in the air, snow has found its way to London, and somewhere nearby there’s the faint sound of handbells, which can only mean one thing: it’s time for the Old Vic’s annual production of A Christmas Carol.
On its seventh outing at the theatre, including one live-streamed version during lockdown, it is John Simm who takes on the role of the miserly money-lender Ebenezer Scrooge whose visitation by his now deceased business partner Marley (Mark Goldthorp, excellent) warns him of the impending arrival of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future that night in an effort to convince Scrooge to change his ways.
Simm’s Scrooge doesn’t quite have the same hard external shell as some of his predecessors. Whereas the parsimony and bitterness of Rhys Ifans or Christopher Ecceslson’s Scrooges seemed to run to their very core, Simm seems to convey a Scrooge that has the capacity to change from the outset. In one sense, this is more believable – how else would a man change so rapidly without the obvious ability to do so? And yet, would he be regarded as such a miser (as we see presented in scenes by the ghosts in which his peers talk of him as such) if this was the case?
What it does mean is that a little of the emotional hit is removed from his revelation that he must – and wants to – change. Still, Simm is incredibly watchable in the role and comes into his own in the final stages where any sense of a fourth wall is truly and utterly shattered as director Matthew Warchus goes for over-the-top Christmas joy. In some ways, it runs slightly counter to the subtle way in which adaptor Jack Thorne weaves Dickens’ story over the previous 90 minutes, and yet it’s this final overblown festive sensory overload that makes the Old Vic production what it is – spectacular and special.
Though cast with a star on each of its runs, it is not the lead that makes the show and this year the performances across the cast are near-faultless. The returning Rob Compton as Bob Cratchit and Alastair Parker as Fezziwig are both excellent, Georgina Sadler is a touching Little Fan and Casey-Indigo Blackwood-Lashley gives an impressively assured performance as Tiny Tim.
There is a slight bittersweet tinge to writing this review of A Christmas Carol. I saw the show the night before it was announced that the Almeida’s artistic director Rupert Goold is to take over from the departing Warchus as Old Vic’s artistic director in Spring 2026. How many more years does this production have left? Presumably it will be back in 2025 in what may be a swan song before Goold (fairly) begins to put his own stamp on the theatre’s programming. And yet, personally, I wish it would run forever.
Rating: ★★★★★ (Excellent)
A Christmas Carol is at the Old Vic, London until 4 January 2025
