Always a festive treat is the bewitching charm of Northern Ballet’s A Christmas Carol. With drama and character firmly at the fore, theatricality fires on all fronts as the stage fills with spectacles of horror and delight, beautifully danced, engagingly mimed, expressively enacted and all enhanced by evocative set, props, costumes, top-class score and magical effects of glittering prettiness and jaw-dropping, ghastly ghostliness.
As the gauzy snowfall lifts, we drop into the grey, dismal dullness and smoky fog of Victorian London, its dark streets and taverns leading to the icy office and shabby home of a certain skinny streak of grumpy miserliness known as Scrooge. Jonathan Hanks, his face ably assisted by a grouchy make-over, acts and dances the role with fine panache and conviction, travelling from a stooped, snarling curmudgeon into a lithesome, skipping, leaping, rejuvenated embodiment of jollity and generosity.
Fine Victorian costumes (thankfully light-weight) fill the stage as the busy corps de ballet performs fine, lively ensembles as better-offs in top-hats, scarves, tail-coats, big bonnets and pretty frocks or in dull, impoverished attire as less fortunate citizens or tavern-frequenters. A string of children walk like poor orphan Olivers, bowls in hand, following a Beadle across the dark, upper level bridge of Les Brotherston’s tall, two-level set, St Paul’s Dome beyond. Also set to melt hearts are the dancing Cratchitt children, poor but rich in joy, especially as Tiny Tim pipes out the carol, How Far is it to Bethlehem? Harris Beattie’s dancing is a lithe delight and he radiates charm, elegance and bonhomie all the way as their ever sunny, optimistic father, Bob Cratchitt, adding playful pathos as he tries to warm his frozen tootsies over a candle in Scrooge’s oh-so-icy office.
Warm, elegant and charming, too, are the delicately lithe and light Jun Ishii and Sarah Chun as Scrooge’s nephew and niece, while George Liang and Dominique Larosse as young Scrooge and fiancé Belle dance a touching pas de deux. In contrast, light-hearted Fezziwig laughs come from jolly, waist-coated Bruno Serraclara and mobcapped Amber Lewis with displays of splay-legged, off-balance, balletic ineptitude that lands them in an inelegant heap.
Of course, it’s the chilling visitations of ghosts and spectres that lie at the heart of Dickens’ tale and the onstage spectacles are splendid. Marley’s chain-rattling ghost floats about Scrooge’s desolate, tall-windowed chamber, his large head horribly bloated, his echoing voice speaking dire warnings, and what a shock to witness his massive jaw drop open and gape hideously as he unties the bandage round his head. Scary, too, are the spiky, spooky hoards of rag-clad, maggot-eaten skeletons that beset old Ebenezer, writhing shimmers of pulsating grey.
Paying their crucial visits as the clock chimes twelve, the three ghosts are delightfully differentiated. Saeka Shirai’s dainty, shining, silvery Ghost of Christmas Past is an enchanting vision of beauty and light, danced with expressive, spritely delicacy. Harry Skoupas’ imposing Ghost of Christmas Present is all size and strength as he dances, bare-chested, bare-footed, in cascades of glitter, wearing red trousers and a voluminous, green frock-coat with immense, swirling skirts, while shock and awe kick in again with The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come: skull-headed and with vast, grey wings of tattered, moth-eaten feathers, he points and menaces with long, spiky fingers.
Written in close collaboration with the show’s deviser, the late Christopher Gable, the music is full of treats, too. Top-of-the-Christmas-tree, award-winning composer, the late, great Carl Davis certainly knew a thing or three when it came to filling TV, movie and ballet scores with dramatic colour and melody – just think Pride and Prejudice. As the 2014 recording rings out remarkably fresh and alive, played by Orchestra Wellington of New Zealand, delicious moods and aural feasts are conjured up by orchestral blends and instrumental solo passages. Peeling bells, xylophone, chimes, kettle and snare drums, stand-out brass and woodwind contributions, shimmering strings or tinkling pub piano plunge us into tense forebodings, horrors and death-march darkness, have us laugh at comical capers or whisk us into carol-singing, cavorting Cockney hoe-downs of bright jollity and joyous optimism.
Finishing with a glorious, snowy Christmas-card tableau, this is a show that can delight young and old alike – even teenagers obliged to attend because the book’s on the GCSE syllabus.
Eileen Caiger Gray
