It's been 171 years since Charles Dickens stood before the people of Birmingham and read A Christmas Carol for the first time in public. The author was in town to help raise money for the Birmingham and Midland Institute and the Brummies of 1854 no doubt leant in, agog, to hear the tale of old tightwad Ebenezer Scrooge and his journey to redemption, just in time for turkey on Christmas Day. Last night (November 20), just up the road, I was doing that very same thing in my seat at the Birmingham Rep theatre.
I have heard the story a thousand times, reading the original and listening to Gonzo and Rizzo tell it in Muppets fashion too, yet I was hanging on Geoffrey Beevers' every word as he sat in his armchair and told it in style. It takes quite some skill in a theatre, I always think, to take archaic language used by the likes of Dickens and yet deliver it in such a way that it sounds as though you talk like that every day of your life. Beevers was an expert at it, leading us by the hand to a cold and grey night in Scrooge and Marley's grim, grey old place of business.
Read more: Birmingham city centre to be 'transformed' by four-day light festival as organiser says 'we need it' Don't miss updates in Birmingham from food and drink, shopping, things to do and more with our daily City Life newsletter here . Matthew Cottle's Scrooge was even more adept. The grumpy old miser (sorry, Matthew) sat hunched over his number crunching parchment, griping and grumbling as Oscar Batterham b.
