16 December 2022

Half-Cut Theatre are presently touring with a staging of Dickens’s festive classic, A Christmas Carol. The four-person troupe, which specialises in productions for the outdoors and (as here) small local venues do a solid job bringing an accessible, entertaining and family-friendly rendition of the story.

As with many modest stagings, the crux of the show lies in the rapport with the audience. Cosy venues, and the acknowledgement of production economies as actors flit between roles on stage and draw attention to absent elements, lend themselves to creating goodwill and familiarity with the performers as much as the characters. Particularly appropriate given the moral of A Christmas Carol, and something that Half-Cut are very capable of leaning into.

The tone is appropriately light but retains Dickens’s pointed societal criticism. They don’t soften the point that miserly behaviour and misanthropy are socially destructive, but aware of the strong draw for families with young children, efforts are made to make sure the ghosts are not particularly terrifying. A part of me does wish that Jacob Marley could be eerie and portentous rather than played very broad, but that could really compromise the accessibility of the show. The Ghost of Christmas Future is a nice middle ground, rhythmically beating a drum to create the ominous atmosphere but avoiding the looming, silent presence from the book (and several film versions) that might reasonably terrify very young viewers.

The embellishments to the material are light but thought through, with the production wisely keeping the iconic Dickensian language and preserving the core appeal of the story. Scrooge being gender-flipped is not treated as blind casting, her gender is actually lightly reintegrated into the story – particularly in the Ghost of Christmas Past sequence, where the institutional sexism of school and early professional life comes to bear. A puritan might quibble whether this is aiming to be a period piece (with occasional humorous anachronisms) or something more temporally dislocated, but this is a minor and fussy consideration.

On the evening of the review, one actor was in fact without a voice, which resulted in him miming whilst another performer was conscripted to project his lines. It’s usually the watchword of a good minimalist performance when the limitations and affordances of a threadbare cast and staging melt into the background. I am pleased to say that Half-Cut Theatre pulled it off here even with this not-inconsiderable hurdle. I do wonder if the disassociated voice actually added something uncanny to the ghost sequence. (They do expect his voice to return for future performances, mind you.)

All told, a very effective production to the credit of Half-Cut Theatre’s endeavour to bring shows to small community hubs, and one very appropriate for a family Christmas outing – not least for younger viewers seeing the story for the first time.

★★★★☆  Fenton Coulthurst, 16th December, 2022

Photo credit:  Harry Elletson