Bah humbug! The wonderful production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ has recently been performed at Notre Dame School, wonderfully showcasing a Christmas tale of hope and redemption.
The Notre Dame drama department has always been known to put on absolutely fantastic productions, and has yet again delighted the audience by taking the well-known Christmas Classic to the stage.
The 26-person cast of A Christmas carol have had rehearsals for 9 weeks prior to the production, and it is safe to say that all of their hard work has paid off, as shown by their 3 fabulous performances from the 27th to the 30th of November.
In this production, we follow the story of the miserly Scrooge, who receives three visits from the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future. We are taken on a journey with Scrooge - played by Lottie Macdonald Craig in year 12 - as he learns to appreciate the wonderful importance of Christmas, ending the play celebrating the holiday which he so despised, “honouring Christmas in his heart”. A variety of characters were met in this play, ranging from bells to clerks to portly gentlemen, all dressed marvellously by Mrs Treherne, who was the brilliant costume designer for this play. Many thanks as well to Mrs Gillespie, who was in charge of the technical aspects of the show - the light changes brought the play alive.
Lottie MacDonald Craig, who was casted as the leading character of Scrooge, said that the role was “certainly one of my more challenging roles, as I had to not only play another gender, also someone who is many years older than me, which was quite hard.”
Despite this difficultly, Lottie performed this complex character absolutely fantastically, portraying Scrooge’s every emotion naturally and effortlessly. With the workload of beginning A-levels, it is clear that she has put a huge amount time and dedication into this play, which should be very much appreciated. All of her hard work doesn’t not go unnoticed, judging by the roaring crowd and glowing feedback - she was also rewarded with very well-deserved flowers after the performance from her friends.
This play also made some history in our school, as never have we ever used CGI and a green screen to create pre-recorded scenes. Mr Munt, one of our computer science teachers, helped to bring Scrooge and the ghosts alive by creating professional videos which played on the projection, depicting the ghosts and Scrooge flying through the snowy skies.
There is no doubt that the cast of this lovely production always remember the fun moments they have shared while rehearsing this play, especially for the lovely year 13s, as this would have been sadly their last play at Notre Dame. This is also the case for the director of this play, Mr Cook, for whom it was also the last play at this school. It is clear to everyone that Mr Cook has worked incredibly hard to ensure that everything went smoothly with A Christmas Carol, especially with a limited rehearsal period. The entire cast is grateful for all of the work that he has done for this play, and we wish him all the best.
This festive production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ created not only a fabulous final product, but it was also the beginning of many things - a lot of friendships were formed among the cast, who will always be together in remembering the exciting memories of this wonderful play of which they have shared the fun of performing. Bah Humbug, and merry Christmas!
