A Christmas Carol (NHB Modern Plays)

Old Vic Stage Version

Charles Dickens, Jack Thorne

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781780019956
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Britisches Drama

Charles Dickens' timeless classic, brought to life in a joyous new adaptation by Jack Thorne.

On a bitter Christmas Eve night a cold-hearted miser is visited by four ghosts. Transported to worlds past, present and future, Ebenezer Scrooge witnesses what a lifetime of fear and selfishness has led to, and sees with fresh eyes the lonely life he has built for himself. Can Ebenezer be saved before it's too late?

Jack Thorne's adaptation of A Christmas Carol is premiered at the Old Vic, London, in November 2017.

ACT ONE

Scene One

The play opens to the sound of hand bells.

They are played with Christmas cheer – but there’s something faintly ominous about them – something faintly mournful.

Something faintly wrong.

They are broken by a voice –

NARRATOR. A Christmas Carol. Being a Ghost Story at Christmas.

And then a new voice emerges, and it is soon followed by a dozen more. The cast speak sometimes in unison, sometimes solo.

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Marley was dead as a doornail.

Did Scrooge know he was dead? Of course. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully upset by the sad event, indeed on the very day of the funeral he solemnised Marley’s passing with an undoubted bargain.

The COMPANY pull money boxes out of the stage and use them to construct a desk.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: ‘Scrooge and Marley’. He did not even mind what debtors called him – Scrooge or Marley – he’d answer to both. It was all the same to him. It was all money.

EBENEZER SCROOGE, old before his time and bent by years of his own neglect, enters – seemingly oblivious to the company around him.

For Scrooge was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. Hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster.

SCROOGE sits at his desk and scrutinises his ledger, looking at it with deep intensity.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, ‘My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?’ No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life enquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways. But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep a distance.

Suddenly four doorframes rise on either side of SCROOGE, and he is encased inside.

CHOIR.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember, Christ, our Saviour

Was born on Christmas Day

SCROOGE tries to stay concentrated on his work, but he’s clearly irritated by the noise.

To save us all from Satan’s pow’r

When we were gone astray

The CHOIR melts away and just three CAROL SINGERS are left, outside one of Scrooge’s doors. Their voices are kind, but sadly not blessed with musicality.

CAROL SINGERS.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

SCROOGE (giving up). Oh Christ.

CAROL SINGERS.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

SCROOGE. Not tonight there’s not.

CAROL SINGERS.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

SCROOGE. You dismay me.

CAROL SINGERS.

Remember, Christ, our Saviour

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan’s pow’r

When we were gone astray

SCROOGE. Please stop.

CAROL SINGERS.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

Comfort and joy

SCROOGE stalks towards the door, full of anger.

SCROOGE. I have warned you enough.

CAROL SINGERS.

Oh tidings of comfort and joy

In Bethlehem…

SCROOGE wrenches open his door.

SCROOGE. Go. Go.

CAROL SINGER (spoken). But, sir, we only seek…

SCROOGE. Seek it elsewhere.

He slams the door in their faces. The CAROL SINGERS remain outside the door, he inside.

CAROL SINGER. But there are thousands in want, sir. Surely, at this charitable time of the year, you could spare us something.

SCROOGE. Many thousands in want you say.

CAROL SINGER. Yes, sir.

SCROOGE. Are there no prisons?

CAROL SINGER. Well, yes, plenty of prisons.

SCROOGE. And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?

CAROL SINGER. They are. Still. I wish I could say they were not.

SCROOGE. The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour then?

CAROL SINGER. Sir, you seem to misunderstand me. A few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.

SCROOGE thinks.

SCROOGE. I help only to support the establishments I have mentioned – they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.

CAROL SINGER. But, sir, many can’t go there; and many would rather die.

SCROOGE. If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

CAROL SINGER. You cannot mean so…

SCROOGE. It’s enough for a man to understand his own business and not to interfere with other people. Mine occupies me constantly. Good evening, sir.

The CAROL SINGERS, slightly daunted, walk away, singing.

CAROL SINGER...