Anyone who reads this blog a lot or follows me on Twitter will know that I am such a big fan of A Christmas Carol that I collect books with different covers and illustrations, and also attempt to watch as many film and television adaptations as possible. For Christmas I was bought a DVD box set of BBC adaptations of various Dickens novels which included A Christmas Carol. We are several episodes into the 1985 series The Pickwick Papers which stands up as a period sitcom which knocks that terrible Upstart Crow into a cocked hat.
However before we started this, we watched A Christmas Carol and made it the last one of the season we watched. As hard as it was for me to deal with, I can't remember actually seeing this before. How I managed to miss it I don't know. Michael Hordern played Scrooge and John Le Mesurier played the ghost of Jacob Marley, aside from June 'Dot Cotton' Brown appearing as Mrs Dilber I didn't recognise anybody else in the cast. Although it is a faithful adaptation it is obviously abridged to fit into an hour long play, but is a pretty credible version that I will now add to my growing pile of versions that I insist on watching every Christmas. If you watch it you will immediately notice that the BBC didn't spend a great deal of money on this production but this doesn't matter. You can throw millions of pounds or dollars at a film project but if you can't tell the story then it has been a waste.
Before Christmas I saw Simon Callow's new interpretation at the cinema, which was subsequently shown on BBC4. I went in not knowing what to expect and was blown away by the low maintenance style. Callow told the story in modern clothing in a derelict warehouse and aside from sound effects everything was left to the imagination. This is storytelling at its very best and Callow delivered the story perfectly. Callow veered away from the book a little but not in a way that most people would notice and dropped a wonderful reference for those paying attention when the reformed Ebenezer Scrooge sent the poulterer to deliver the prize turkey to the Cratchit house at 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town. If you don't know then go and find out for yourself.
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