Review: A Christmas Carol, Bristol Old Vic

From austerity to food banks, Charles Dickens’s Victorian tale of a miserly businessman too preoccupied with his own balance sheet seems less at odds with our society now than the 175-year gap might suggest.

Bristol Old Vic’s Year of Change finishes on a consciously bold streak as Dickens’s A Christmas Carol delves into the reasons behind why so many of us become insular. In Tom Morris’s adaption, the morality tale is turned into a rallying cry for a sense of community in a fragmented, individualistic world.

As Scrooge, played with a baritone sneer and intimidating stature by Felix Hayes, begins to outline all the ways he might swindle one his clients, it’s hard to tell if we’re in a contemporary boardroom or Dickensian London. The tale of the archetypal money-lender who refuses to get into the spirit of Christmas is set against the backdrop of the question of what happens when community is lost.

Fleix Hayes as Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’ at Bristol Old Vic. All pics: Geraint Lewis

With a story as familiar as this one, director Lee Lyford injects the traditional with theatrical magic in all the right places. As we anticipate Scrooge’s first visitation by Jacob Marley’s ghost – appearing in chains with a steampunk look and Americana soundtrack – Scrooge steps through the fourth wall, berating the liberal, communitarian and thoroughly Bristolian theatregoers in his audience. The show is inflected with hints of pantomime and carnival, unravelled to full effect in the riotously colourful climax. At one point, Scrooge is booed by children and adults alike.

Puppetry, a Tom Morris hallmark, is used by Lyford to great effect to add touches of childlike imagination. The staging works to highlight the central theme in Morris’s script: the possibility that a bit of magic might just save even the most narrow-minded.

The ghost of Christmas past appears as a white shawl draped over a spotlight, and a scene told through origami reveals the younger Scrooge’s love of fairy tales. Morris also updates Belle’s role in Scrooge’s past, present and future. Along with the injection of puppetry and magic, this creates a romantic dimension that only adds to the 21st-century update.

Gwyneth Herbert’s contemporary score keeps the energy up as we travel with Scrooge through his nightmarish ghostly visits. Lyford and Herbert have previously joined forces on The Snow Queen, and here Herbert’s score likewise overhauls Dickens’s Victorian London with a mix of Victoriana, folk-electro and modish swagger.

Composer Gwyneth Herbert also features as the Ghost of Christmas Present

Scrooge’s moral transformation takes place mostly in the theatre’s stalls, creating a hilariously tongue-in-cheek bit of audience participation. In a world where stark contrasts between wealth and class keeps many of us atomised, the boisterous optimism of this Christmas Carol is infectious.

Saikat Ahamed and cast members in A Christmas Carol

As the world of Poor Laws, workhouses and brutal prisons transforms into colour and the spirit of Christmas, the refrain “Lets change the world today because tomorrow we might die” rings out across Bristol Old Vic. It’s a punchy modern manifesto, one that Dickens would thoroughly get behind.

A Christmas Carol continues at Bristol Old Vic until January 13 2019. For more information and tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/a-christmas-carol

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