“You may find me cold and unfeeling sir, but I would venture to say I am a man of my word; a man whose word carries weight; a man whose word allows him the ability to strike a deal and back it up with his signature. My signature is worth something. Yours it would appear – if you continue to treat your financial obligations and business dealings in this manner – will soon be worthless.”

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These are the words of a man who hates Christmas! A man who hates anything that does not make him richer and so he hates Christmas most of all. These are the words of a man filled with pride who has forsaken humanity and measures his life in dollars or pounds sterling only. These are the words of Ebenezer Scrooge.

And this Christmas those words, which happen to be from my adaptation of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, are being brought to life in Wokingham England where Wokingham Theatre is producing my small cast version of the play from December 4th to 14th. The production is being directed by David Stacey who I connected with in early November to talk with him about Wokingham Theatre and his production of the play.

JAMES HUTCHISON

Tell me a little bit about Wokingham. The community and the theatre.

DAVID STACEY

It’s quite a traditional lovely old English town that has a good community atmosphere. The theatre group itself started back in the 1940s. And through community spirit and amateur theatre clubs it developed and sustained itself and in the 1980s they built a theatre. Unlike a lot of other theatre groups who have to either rent accommodation or share the space with other societies or groups Wokingham Theatre has its own space.

JAMES

Why do you think A Christmas Carol still resonates so many years after it was originally written?

DAVID

The Christmas that we know, certainly here in Britain, with the roast turkey or roast goose, the Victorian Christmas carols and all those kinds of traditions come from Dickens. Everybody, when they’re celebrating Christmas, encounters all of those as part of the Christmas season. So that’s partly it, but it’s also a lovely moral story that taps into what is important about Christmas. And that’s not necessarily anything to do with religion, even though it’s obviously a religious feast, but for those that aren’t religious they can still tap into the spirit of the story and what Christmas means. And everybody knows the story and they like to listen to it, again and again, year after year, and it has a happy ending which audiences love.

JAMES

What are some of the unique things that you’re bringing to your production?

DAVID

When the spirits arrive there will be some video projection onto the stage to add special effects. And we’ve got music that has been written for the show. It’s not a musical or anything but rather than just taking pre-recorded Christmas carols or Christmas music, which everyone will have heard before, we’re composing music. I also wanted to keep it traditional. So, we’re still using the Victorian setting and we still have the Victorian imagery and everything, but we’re doing things slightly different with how the spirits look and how that’s played.

So, for example, the second spirit rather than dressed exactly in the costume, as described in the book, our second spirit is going to be on stilts. So, he’s quite the giant but a bit more like a circus or Willy Wonka type of character rather than a Santa Claus character in the big beard and costume. And the third spirit is traditionally done as a grim reaper, so I wanted to do something different with that. He’s quite creepy. You look at his face that has a mask on and a black suit and he has these long fingers. And we have an interactive set that moves and hopefully the audience will be magically surprised by that.

JAMES

What do you like about directing?

DAVID

It’s the creativity. I do acting as well as directing. And when I act in something I tend to miss the directing and when I direct something I tend to miss the acting. But I really like directing and trying to get my vision of the story out and seeing it created. Whether that’s doing a small black box studio theatre show or something larger on the stage in Wokingham with more people involved. It’s about bringing the magic of the story to the audience. And I will read the script and think this is my vision of it. And I want to then be able to turn that into a reality and that’s why I really enjoy reading play scripts, rather than novels. Because the play script is written for somebody else to take and to visualize it and to physically produce it and turn it into something for people to watch. And I find that really exciting, rather than books which stay in your head, you’re not expected to physically recreate the physicality of it. And I like that the audience is watching it from the front, and then from behind you have all of these sets that are actually all fake. And it’s all people in makeup and costumes that are taking on a character and I really, really like that.

JAMES

One of the things I tried to do in my adaptation was have Scrooge interact more with the spirits or speaking to the people that are memories and making him more resistant to changing by having him argue more with the spirits than what’s in the book. Scrooge has to take the whole night to change and that’s a process and a journey and I wonder if you’ve found that playing well and just how the actors are using it.

DAVID

That’s one of the things that attracted me to this particular script. And also because you introduced the device of the letters. The letters allow Scrooge to have more regret at the end. In the original book he wakes up the next morning and is going to change but there needs to be some sort of regret as well because he’s lost out on marrying his childhood sweetheart because he didn’t behave very well. And that’s life. You can’t go through life behaving badly and then decided to change your mind and get everything back that you’ve missed out on. The letters are a lovely, lovely device to really emphasize that and as you say the talking to the spirits is good fun. He’s particularly argumentative with the first spirit and we’re having the first spirit be quite argumentative back. She’s not playing it all nice. Because even though it’s not a complete nightmare, it isn’t a pleasant dream he’s having in any way.

JAMES

Well as a playwright I’m not set in you having to produce the play as I’ve described it. Generally when I write I try to minimize the amount of character description and character action I put in my scripts because I believe those things are going to be discovered by how you design the set, by the actors you cast, by how you want to stage the play, by the size of your stage, all of these things that I can’t anticipate. So, it’s absolutely wonderful and so fascinating to see the different takes on telling the story that all come from the same script.

DAVID

And because our audience is an adult audience we’re not trying to do anything that’s too saccharine or anything like that. It’s not really targeted to a child or family audience so we can have some bits that are maybe a little bit more unpleasant or you don’t have to worry about scaring kids or getting them upset.

And so one of the other things I’ve introduced for when Scrooge travels with the spirits is to make the journey quite unpleasant. Particularly with the first spirit. When she says, “I will take you or let’s go and see somebody else or the Fezziwigs – that kind of stuff – she grabs hold of Scrooge and it’s almost as if he’s being electrocuted. So, there’s going to be lots of special effects of electricity and sparks and things like that. And it’s painful for him. And then with the second spirit, it’s a bit more wonderous and swirly and everything is going to get spun around and he’s going to get physically thrown around as if he’s on a sort of like a roller coaster. I didn’t want it to be where they all just float off into the sky like Peter Pan and drift around pleasantly, because then I’m not convinced that Scrooge has changed. Or why would he change if it’s all been a nice dream? No, it’s because he’s been taught a lesson in a painful way and I think the script allows for that.

JAMES

I think you found my big cast version of the script first and then I sent you my smaller cast version for you to read. That version has one actor play Scrooge and then the other actors play multiple roles. How is that working for you in terms of staging the play and telling the story

DAVID

Wokingham Theatre is a relatively large group, but we certainly couldn’t have cast a thirty strong production. So, I really liked how you reduced it down and have the multi rolling and have it as an ensemble piece. And, that’s the main reason I went with the smaller cast version although we didn’t go strictly with the casting as you have it in your script. But I like the idea of the actors taking on more than one role because it gives them more to do and they do enjoy that in my experience, and it gives them a bit more stage time.

JAMES

Tell me a little bit about the cast.

DAVID

Jerry Radburn who is playing Scrooge and has been acting at Wokingham Theatre and at various other theatres for a very long time is someone I know very well. I’ve been in lots of plays with him but I haven’t directed him before. Most of the cast I know and I’ve worked with in various guises either being in plays with several of them or directed them in other shows but there’s one or two that I’d never met before who turned up because we have open auditions. And so, it’s really, really nice when we get new people coming along. And as part of this season I had a policy that I sent to all of my directors that you needed to cast at least one new person for each show if they’re suitable for a particular role just to expand the diversity of the group. And we have a youth theatre group, as part of Wokingham Theater, which runs classes and so we often tap into that to find keen youngsters who want to take parts and be in our main season shows. And so that’s kind of good fun to work with the youth cast as well. The key thing is that everybody’s doing it because they love it. Everyone has fun and that’s the main priority.

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and adapted for the stage by James Hutchison runs from December 4th to December 14th at Wokingham Theatre. The production stars Jerry Radburn as Scrooge and is directed by David Stacey. To find out more about Wokingham Theatre and their upcoming season visit the Wokingham Theatre Website.

Wokingham Theatre – A Christmas Carol – Cast & Crew

Jerry Radburn – Scrooge
Matthew Lugg – Fred
Claire Bray – Bob Cratchit, Scrooge as a young man
Peter Pearson – Mr. Bentley, Jacob Marley, Thomas
Chris Westgate – Mr. Granger, Second Spirit, Mr. Fezziwig
Gary Smith – Mr. Harrington, Old Joe
Vicky Lawford – Mrs. Dilber, Mrs. Fezziwig, Mrs. Cratchit
Becca Tizzard – First Spirit, Martha Cratchit. Rose
Louise Punter – Cook
Sophie Marsden – Belle, Emma, Caroline
Andi Lee – Granny Cratchit

Youth Cast:
Oliver Lees, Nicholas Zezula, Amber Pearce, Annabel Brittain, Jonathan Willis, Joseph Rea

Director – David Stacey
Assistant Director – Heather Maceachern
Production Manager – Claire Lawrence
Stage Manager – Mike Rogers
Costume – Rosemary Matthews & Sue deQuidt
Props/models – Claire Willis
Lights – Nick Gill & Richard Field
Sound – John Gold
Original Music – Charlie Lester
Choreography – Lesley Richards
Set Design – Henry Ball

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