A Christmas Carol - Bolton Octagon - 07/12/07 by James Ellaby

A Christmas Carol is the most obvious play to put on at this time of year. A story that everybody loves, full of festive spirit, spooky ghosts and lots of fun, Charles Dickins' tale will always bring the crowds in and rightly so. Of course, the problem with putting it on is that you can end up with competition, and that's the case for the Bolton Octagon this year, with the Palace Theatre also showing Scrooge, starring Shane Richie. So, can this smaller scale affair succeed on its own terms?

Mostly, it does, which you would expect from the Octagon, but it's not without its hitches. The main problem is the decision to play Scrooge as a bit of a panto villain before his eventual salvation and while Robert Pickavance does it with gusto, it dumbs down the importance of the story completely and makes old Ebeneezer more of a lovable grouch than a grasping old miser. This means that his transformation is much less marked than it should be, and also undermines some of the moments that should be quite scary.

Of course, it's a family show and you can understand the logic of making Scrooge a bit more 'fun', but it's a little disappointing that what could have been a real alternative to the big flashy Shane Richie musical ends up being pretty much the same in some respects. However, that is not to say that A Christmas Carol isn't an attempt to tell this story in a rather more grown-up way than Scrooge does, and right from the off, the use of music is much more sophisticated.

Traditional Christmas carols like In The Bleak Midwinter are sung by the cast in between scenes and three of the actors play the trumpet, saxophone and clarinet to bring further colour to the proceedings as well as helping set the Victorian scene nicely. The stage-set works well in this respect too, with Scrooge's four-poster bed sat in the middle of a row of old-looking houses, two of which have smoke pouring from their chimneys. This all helps provide a lot of atmosphere and that is maintained throughout, particularly when it comes to the party at Mr Fezziwig's house, as well as some of the more bleak moments. The talented cast have to be versatile as they all have several roles, and they are all pretty good in them, managing to make them different enough.

One of the most important aspects of any play like this is of course the way the ghosts are introduced and used, and this production does well. Marley's Ghost appears with appropriate shock value and is impressively scary when he needs to be, helped particularly by his insistence on banging away at a piano from time to time. The Christmas Ghosts are all equally well done, so it's a shame that Scrooge comes away so hammy when interacting with them at times, because otherwise this could have been a very special production of a very special story.