The Rose Theatre, Kingston’s refreshing new take on the timeless classic, A Christmas Carol, bursts with festive cheer. It’s a feat that this article can hardly do justice.
The Rose have successfully updated the centuries-old story. They have both imbued its strong moral message with greater complexity - a factor that allows it to strike a far deeper chord with modern audiences, and have, crucially, recentered the narrative on the children of a ‘Ragged School’. These elements - combined with a strong community feel - enable the production to glisten with intense, often contrasting, tones, which the director Rosie Jones has successfully combined to produce the essential chemistry of a true Christmas favourite.
Key to the production’s charm is the revitalised adaptation of the text. By placing emphasis on Scrooge’s backstory and adapting it in crucial areas, the play explores the character in far greater detail. At some points, the play subverts our expectations entirely: the portrayal of a teenage boy in a classroom, an image often associated with Ebenzer Scrooge, is actually Scrooge’s brother, Edmund. When the audience discovers that Edmund later dies at Christmas - partially due to Scrooge herself - and that Edmund was her father’s preferred child, the audience develops a far murkier picture of Ebenzer Scrooge the character. She is not a woman whose avarice led to coldness, but whose personal grief and frustration in a man’s world led to bitterness. Michael Liddy, a secondary school English teacher, explained that this adapted ‘metanarrative [...] helped to give the [story] contemporary relevance’. But, as is inevitable when straying away from such a classic text, to some, not all elements of the adaptation seemed necessary. Michael Liddy, for example, admitted that ‘he was unclear as to what was brought to the table by having a female Scrooge’.
It’s clear this show welcomes the audience to feel far more sympathy for its main protagonist. It seems, therefore, that we are sharing in Scrooge’s journey. Elexi Walker’s Dickens seems to be our spirit - perhaps a Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future - who encourages us to put aside our own interests and fully understand others, despite their flaws. Thus, the play delves into Dickens’ radical social ideas far further, suggesting that, perhaps, only understanding and forgiveness can provide redemption.
Dickens plays a similar role with the children of the Ragged School. The parallels are clear: just as she changes the audience’s moral perceptions, she seems to facilitate the children’s empowerment. Walker’s energy when playing Dickens made it clear from her very entrance that she would shake up the childrens’ downcast attitude at the start of the play. Frankie Bradshaw’s costume design also set her apart from the Ragged children: the costume’s rich colours and fabrics suggested her higher social status, as well as hinting at her liveliness. Both subtly through these elements and more clearly through the narrative, Dickens provides the children with a journey which they may alter and experience for themselves. A nod, perhaps, to Dickens’ generous financial support for children. Thus, the play suggests children’s ability to face the impossible and overhaul the old social order.
This message can’t be reflected any more clearly than through the talent of the Rose Youth Theatre. Indeed, it’s the Rose Youth Theatre’s actors who steal this show. This talented group of youth actors act with so much energy that placing the children front and centre gives the production a strong community feel. Whilst Michael Liddy admitted that he ‘personally’ felt that ‘youth acting often strays into energy for the sake of energy’, he did acknowledge that ‘it certainly engaged the youth audience that the show was essentially aimed at’. This strong engagement of the audience, meant that - by the end of the play - they felt part of the Ragged School community. It’s this element that earnt the play a standing ovation.
These stunning performances enable the directors to successfully combine so many different tones. There are elements of tenderness, fear and comedy, whose seamless transitions perfectly distil the festive warmth invoked in Dickens’s passages. Michael Liddy reflected this when he stated ‘the balance between that [energy] and the more subtle, reflective parts of the story was well kept’. For example, the sorrowful themes of Scrooge’s backstory contrast with some frightening moments, such as the unearthly portrayals of Ignorance and Want. But these themes were perhaps most skilfully combined with comedy - often driven by the Rose Youth Theatre actors - which contributed enormously to the play’s charm.
The play’s warmth cannot be mentioned without referring to the play’s set, which Michael Liddy said was used ‘very creatively’. Whilst the haze and slum-like rags draped over the wings both invoke a Victorian atmosphere, the swing and, later, the hoop are the shows’ most spectacular element: Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past remarkably swing into the audience. Such awe is also inspired by the musical numbers - particularly the last and first - whose vibrancy enlivens and, in many ways, energises the audience. This, too, successfully invokes the warmth of Dickens’ descriptions.
A show with such a strong emotional heartbeat, therefore, can scarcely be ignored. The combination of tones and its complex moral message ensures the play is far from monotonic. Instead, the Rose Theatre’s A Christmas Carol will enter the pantheon of the warmest festive theatre.
