A timeless classic, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol continues to bring festive cheer to people all over the world, and this December Sheffield Theatres have brought it right to the centre of our city.
As soon as I walked into the Crucible theatre, I was amazed by the set that has been created for this show. It was somehow complex and simple at the same time, and it drew me into what was happening on stage before anything had even happened! I continued to enjoy how the cast members used the set throughout the play as the different levels it created meant that the performance worked well in the round.
I really liked how Sheffield Carols were combined with the original story in order to make this production more locally relevant. The programme talks about how these versions of carols were traditionally sung in villages across the country however they generally fell out of favour in the early nineteenth century and were replaced by more respectable hymns. Thanks to an increased interest in Sheffield’s traditional carols over the past few decades, this folk tradition has been recovered, and local carols are sung once again in Sheffield’s pubs. My favourite carol in the show was “Six Jolly Miners” which was integrated into the scene at Fezziwig’s Christmas party. It was upbeat and catchy, and it really captured the festive joy that Scrooge was witnessing.
I thought that one of the reasons that this production worked so well was that it used a framing device of young street children to tell the main story. This was effective because it showed that, as well as changing how Scrooge viewed Christmas, the ghosts’ visits changed how real people’s perceptions of the holiday season were changed for the better thanks to Charles Dickens’s book.
I was impressed by the performance of the whole cast in this production, however Natai Levi particularly stood out to me in his role as the Ghost of Christmas Past. I thought his costume was the most interesting costume choice of the show. He wore a headlamp which worked for the plot given that his role was to illuminate Scrooge’s past whilst also evoking a miner’s uniform and increasing the local relevance of the production.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Sheffield Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol” and I’d really recommend going to see it over the festive period. It is on at the Crucible Theatre from now until January 10th and you can buy tickets online or at the Sheffield Theatres’ box office.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
