The glorious thing about Christmas traditions is that we do not see them forming, yet once they are established we warmly acknowledge their annual appearance. Just as with matters familial so with the theatre: the Old Vic’s production of the Dickens yuletide behemoth, in a version by Jack Thorne , is now in its eighth year and is a firm fixture in the capital’s Christmas landscape. Its annual USP is glossy casting for the part of Scrooge; last year gloried in a terrific turn by Christopher Eccleston and now John Simm dons the Victorian top hat of a grouchy Womble.
At the risk of coming over all, well, Scrooge about it, Matthew Warchus’s production looks a little under-loved this year, as if going through the festive motions rather than feeling them deeply and profoundly. Whereas Eccleston guided us expertly through every step on the miserly misanthrope’s hard-won journey to redemption, the trajectory that Simm traces is far more perfunctory. It is a challenge to believe he has truly absorbed the life lessons taught him by the three fearsome female ghosts, although there is one memorable exchange with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
“This was not my fault!” bellows Scrooge when confronted with her bleak prophecies of suffering. “Then whose was it?” she hollers back with equal vehemence. Thorne’s slick adaptation, which unfolds on a cruciform stage decorated with three portentously empty doorframes, doesn’t afford much time for character building for Bob.
