A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a family favourite at this time of year, and the chance to see it on stage is a delight and from looking at the audience, a clear bum-on-seats show. This adaptation was by the “39-steps” playwright Patrick Barlow (who made the well-known production starring four cast members playing a huge array of characters, with hilarious results - not least with the fact that a pair of tartan slippers and a mad wig can convert a character from one to another in a jiffy when done with conviction).

This show was similar, though I have not seen another production of Barlow’s version, we do get the idea that the expectation is high energy, few cast and madcap routines in managing to pull off the production. The comedy should be in part the story, but a lot should be in the physical comedy required to make this work. I was definitely intrigued and excited to see what Ulverston Outsiders would do with this production.

The lead character of Scrooge was played by Rob O’Hara. He had clearly put a lot of time into developing his character and thinking through how to portray all the different facets of it - the initial money-grabbing loan merchant, to the tormented-by-ghosts, guilt-ridden figure, through to the final friendly, giving and generous character at the end. It’s a huge amount to take on and pushed his acting skills to carry this off. His was one of two “stable” characters and, although he played a grumpy scrooge, his role was as a straight-playing foil for the other cast members’ “stupidity”, in that they were jumping around between characters. Played, as if he was unaware that the rest of the cast around him was in a state of flux, Rob committed himself to the role completely.

Phil Cooper played the role of Bob Cratchit, the downtrodden clerk of Scrooge. Phil worked hard on this character and brought his desperate state to life. However, the nature of the production, being somewhat farcical, made me question whether the relationship between Scrooge and Cratchit came across properly. The farcical nature can somewhat take-over, and this is to be expected to an extent.

There were a large range of small characters, played by the rest of the cast: Jenny Schofield was chief ghost-ress, playing the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Her characters were quite similar to each other and played with confidence.

Helen Newell played Mrs Lack, Isabella, Constance and Mrs Cratchit - a lovely range of characters handled well.

Matt Berry did a lovely job with his characters of Fred, Young Scrooge, and George and worked well with his fellow cast members.

Margaret Harrison played Lavinia, Mother and Maid and did a nice job with these.

Barbara Springthorpe played Hermione and Mrs Grimes and really brought these characters to life.

Richard Harris took on the roles of Jacob Marley and Peter Cratchit, as well as a “passer-by” and Fred’s son. Richard played these with confidence and handled the characters nicely.

Seamus Doran portrayed Mr Grimes and Fezziwig nicely, with solid performances along with some important set moving work and special effects, such as providing “snow”.

Lily Mitchell had a range of roles: Fran, Ursula, Katy, Abigail Cratchit and Fred’s daughter. She handled the challenge of multiple characters well, and it’s nice to see this young actor’s confidence developing on stage.

Stanley Mitchell played Little Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Boy in the Street and Fred’s son. This young performer tackled these characters well and it is lovely to see this young actor in the early stages of his acting journey and it was nice to see him keep his concentration when his family kept waving to him from the audience.

Overall we see a wealth of talented individuals putting together a show that they’ve worked hard on. They know their parts well and work well as a company. They are in time with each other and they know what’s going on.

However, I do struggle to be sure if the piece came across as intended. I expected the humour of the show would be around the zany nature of a small number of cast playing a large number of characters. However, this was slightly lost by choosing to cast the show more widely, therefore you don’t consider it quite so zany… and in many productions it is quite normal to double-up a few parts, so we end up with a slightly more “normal” looking play, which is still looking for laughs around the mad-cap nature of its staging. I felt this show struggled because it didn’t know quite what it wanted to be. Did it want to be about the physical nuttiness of having a small cast playing a large number of characters, or did it want to be a deeply emotional morality piece about redemption and acknowledging the sins of our past and atoning for them? I think this work sat in the middle of the two.

I think the group worked together to make an interesting piece of work, but I do feel they needed to make some firm choices around which direction they were taking things in order for the audiences to be fully on their side. That said, I got a lot out of the production and I am totally aware that the audience members enjoyed it.

This was a technically difficult and interesting piece of work and it’s nice to see people having the courage to take this on. It requires excellence in comic timing, an awareness of what will make the humour work on the stage and a very strong camaraderie between the cast. There was a lot to enjoy about this production, and obviously lot of hard work and time had gone into it - Director Tony Smith must have been pleased with members commitment and conviction.

Thank you, Ulverston Outsiders for your invite and hospitality.

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