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A spell binding evening awaits at The Unicorn, November 27th-30th as ADC stage A Christmas Carol. Kevin Thomson tells us more
Abingdon Drama Club’s last production – in their 80th anniversary year – is the seasonal tale A Christmas Carol.
One ghostly Christmas night, cold-hearted businessman Ebenezer Scrooge (Adam Blake) gets the fright of his life, discovers the truth about himself, and learns to love his neighbour.
This adaptation by David Edgar of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol rediscovers the social conscience of this timeless tale and through time jumps, a realisation of how Scrooge’s life was in the past, how it is going on around him in the present and the shock of what it will be in the future.
All the well-known characters are here and the extra element added to the original gives us an insight into the various parliamentary reports of the 1840s on abolishing rotten boroughs, establishing workhouses etc and how Dickens brings that to our attention.
Edgar’s clever (and amazing) adaptation is brought to the Unicorn stage by Abingdon Drama Club directed by one of the club’s finest directors, Susi Dalton.
Edgar has reinvented this most Victorian of stories and his masterstroke is having the author, Dickens (Terry Atkinson), tell the story with his editor and friend John Forster (Kieran Madden). The show begins with Dickens trying to write another book on poverty and child labour. Forster suggests this may be too bleak and sad for a Christmas time readership. The two of them construct the story in front of us, with themselves watching as the tale unfolds. This play’s wonderful device shows us how Dickens decided on the various scene.
Explaining why she wanted to direct this adaptation, director Susi Dalton says: “I love different versions of well-known classics and I directed another different version of A Christmas Carol at the school where I work, a few years ago. I decided to go with David Edgar’s version, not only to give myself new challenges, but also because I felt this version added something extra to the original we all know and love.”
She continues: “I am really looking forward to directing and seeing this version of A Christmas Carol with our wonderful actors, as I know they will help me make my vision a great success for Abingdon Drama Club.”
Tickets are £12pp, £10 concessions (60+, under-12s, students, ADC members). They are available from The Bookstore at 15 Bury Street in Abingdon or at abingdon-drama-club – Abingdon Drama Club – Passionate about performance
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