CHRISTMAS ISN'T JUST FOR CHRISTMAS

Today, the feast Candlemas, traditionally marks the 40th day of – and conclusion to – the Christmas-Epiphany season; but, maybe, it doesn't need to be... Charles Dickens certainly thought that was an option, as evidenced by Ebenezer Scrooge's declaration towards the end of in A Christmas Carol (1843):

 

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

 

[Illustration: Roberto Innocenti, A Christmas Carol (1990)]

WHY IS IT SUCH A WONDERFUL LIFE?

Being now almost now that eve of eves, means it is time to watch, yet again, my favourite Christmas films – in fact one of my all-time favourite films whether it's Christmas or not! – Frank Capra's eternally satisfying and edifying 1946 masterpiece, It's a Wonderful Life.

Supposing you agree with my estimation of the film's worth (and, if you don't, kindly stop reading and go and do something more satisfying!), it's not difficult to see why it works so powerfully on the heart and mind; it does so – not accidentally – in the same way as does Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: by touching on a restless sense of longing and a haunting fear of loss that is universal to humankind.

And if James Stewart – an actor too easily pigeon-holed as being a charming but lightweight player – ever gave a more nuanced performance than his portrayal of George Bailey, then I don't know of one, not even his barnstorming performance as the benign Jefferson Smith, Capra's All-American Everyman, in Mr Smith Goes to Washington.

At the beginning of the film, Stewart is all wide-eyed optimism and energised hope; filled with a desire to shake off the dust of the archetypical American small town, Bedford Falls, and see the world. But as the story progresses, he registers disappointment and disillusionment not in a melodramatic way, but in a subtle – often unspoken – portrayal of a man forced to accept the burdens of duty, the need to trade-in his dreams in order to be able to stand by his family, friends and neighbours.

From that turning-point onward, Stewart shifts his performance through a state of happy resignation with his lot in life to one of uncontrolled rage and nihilistic despair. That is when the heartwarming, some might say hokey, portrayal of small people nobly and courageously living out their small lives against all odds takes a darkly dramatic turn and the hero becomes a haggard, worn-down, tragic figure, ready to believe he would be better off dead.

What is, perhaps, most surprising about the film – and is evidence of Capra's genius as an auteur – is the shape of the narrative, with two-thirds of the running-time devoted to establishing the characters, major and minor, and ensuring that we, as viewers, have an emotional investment in them all. 

 

So it is that when George is given the gift of being able to see what the world would have been like if he had never been born, we care not just about George's own reactions to the terrifying revelations, but also about all the other, by now beloved, characters whose lives have been embittered, shriveled or destroyed by influence and interventions of this man who has come to sees his life as futile and valueless.

Stewart's central role is surrounded, supported and enhanced by his fellow players: Donna Reed as the ever-loving, ever-caring wife, Mary, and Lionel Barrymore – famous for years for his annual radio portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge – perfectly cast as that other "squeezing, grasping covetous old sinner", Henry Potter.

Then there's Thomas Mitchell as the absent minded Uncle Billy; Beulah Bondi as George's mother; H. B. Warner as the town druggist, Mr. Gower; and, of course, Henry Travers, as Clarence Oddbody the "angel second class" who is a heaven-sent emissary determined both to prevent George from committing suicide, and helping him see – despite all the vagaries and setbacks – that it truly is a wonderful life, and, by so doing, win his angel's wings.

With its visions of Past, Present and a shockingly revisionist glimpse into the future, along with the spirit of goodwill to all men, we are definitely within the territory of Charles Dickens' celebrated "ghost story of Christmas".

A Christmas Carol has inspired – or, if you prefer, spawned – hundreds of derivatives, but none has been more enduring or more deserving of celebration than It's A Wonderful Life.

 

 

[This post is a revised version of one posted on 21 December 2018.]

GHOSTS OF SCROOGES PAST

From my Christmas Carol archive: memories of three theatrical Scrooges: Patrick Stewart, Anthony Newley (and Scrooge composer, Leslie Bricusse) and Tommy Steele. 

 

 

I sent my programme for the Patrick Stewart one-man production – which one of the greatest pieces of theatre I have ever seen – to (what was then) The Albery Theatre and never getting it back, despite having enclosed return postage! But then, some 18-months later, long after I'd given up on ever seeing it again, the signed programme miraculously materialised, like one of Scrooge's ghostly visitors!

I can't recall how I got the Anthony Newley and Tommy Steele programmes signed, I probably left them with the Stage Door keepers (I was never one for haunting Stage Doors, waiting for the star to leave after a performance) but I certainly remember the circumstance of getting Leslie Bricusse to add his signature to the Newley Scrooge programme.

It was in Beverley Hills where I was interviewing Mr Bricusse for one of my radio shows. After he'd signed the programme, knowing his interest in Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge, I gave him a copy of The Unsung Story, my book on A Christmas Carol. He received it enthusiastically and then, suddenly jumping up, he rushed from the room calling back over his shoulder: "I've got something for you that you absolutely won't have in your Dickens collection!" He  returned with a copy of the Japanese libretto for the Tokyo production of Scrooge to which he added a typical inscription...

 

 

HUMBUG!

I am a devout and devoted ‘Dickensian Christmas Caroller’! (Did you know I am obsessed with Dickens’ famous “Ghost Story of Christmas”? Or that I once wrote a book about it?) So it’s always a case of anticipated pleasure when a December rolls around offering a new version of the best-known Christmas story outside of those in the Gospels!

 

 

Netflix’s Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, is very much an animated movie for our times: slick, brittle-hard, animation (oh, how I yearn, instead, for the humanity of Aardman’s Plasticine world); cute (but oddly unlovable) doe-eyed moppets; clumsy diversity-realigned characterisations (Scrooge’s nephew with an Indian Raj bride and even a hajib-wearing Londoner spotted in the crowd scenes); ratcheted-up grotesquery and exhausting, eye-tiring, over-the-top special effects sequences. Oh, yes, and there’s a dog: a bloodhound inherited by Scrooge from his “dead to begin with” partner, Jacob Marley. 

 

There is, of course, the obligatory starry voice cast: headed by the ubiquitous Luke Evans as Ebenezer Scrooge but with standout performances from a chilling Jonathan Pryce as the icy spectre of the late Mr. Marley and a cosy, quirky Olivia Colman as a mercurial Ghost of Christmas Past candle.

 

On the plus side (and every version of A Christmas Carol, although sometimes challenging to identify, will have occasional redeeming features), there are one or two smart plot embellishments such as having the young Scrooge working in a blacking factory and the put-upon clerk, Bob Cratchit, being (without knowing it) the son of one of those who, many years before, had been cruelly brought to ruin by Messrs Scrooge and Marley.

 

What really got me through this over-long, over-done interpretation were the sharp lyrics and fuzzy sentiment of the songs by the late Leslie Bricusse. It was, I admit, a case of chronic nostalgia for I first heard these songs on a December night, fifty-two years ago, when my best friend and I attended a royal charity premiere for Ronald Neame’s film musical, Scrooge, starring Albert Finney as Dickens’ “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!” 

 

Later that evening, fuelled with the spirit of Christmastide (and a few ‘rum-and-blacks’) I recall we danced our way down Charing Cross Road singing Bricusse’s particularly catchy little ditty, ‘Thank You Very Much’ to the bemusement of passers-by.  

 

In 1992, Bricusse reworked the musical for the stage with his long-time friend and creative collaborator Anthony Newley (Stop the World – I Want to Get Off) as the titular humbug, a role later revived by Tommy Steele. Obviously, being the Carol nerd that I am, I saw both these titanic (if idiosyncratic) legends in the role.

 

It is the case, therefore, that these songs have been part of my musical psyche since I was 21-years-old and – alongside the carols that I’ve known since my childhood – are an indelible element of my personal Christmas soundtrack. Maybe that fact may have softened what might otherwise have been a less tolerant review of the new movie, but – as is almost always the case with adaptations of this book (think of the versions with Alastair Sim, George C. Scott, Kelsey Grammer, Mickey Mouse, The Muppets or Mr Magoo) something always comes through – powerfully or obliquely – of Dickens’ miraculous concoction of jollity and sorrow, hope and regret, the innocence of youth and the sagacity of age, searing social commentary, warm-hearted, open-handed Christian compassion and the very essence of ‘Christmasness’ as only this literary alchemist could conjure. 

 

A WONDERFUL KNOCKER!

 

The knocker caught [Scrooge's] eye. 

"I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!"

 

DICKENS 'OTHER' CHRISTMAS CAROL

 

Before Charles Dickens wrote his much-adored masterpiece, A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843), he had composed 'A Christmas Carol' in verse and included it The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, otherwise known as The Pickwick Papers (1836).

In Chapter XXVII of that book – titled 'A good-humored chapter' – the Pickwickians visit Dingley Dell and spend the Christmas holiday with Mr Wardle and his family. During the ensuing jovialities, their host – "a  merry old gentleman" – sings 'A Christmas Carol' in praise of the season in, the author reports, a good, round, sturdy voice".

In 1890, many years after Dickens had written those verses and had gone on to use the phrase 'A Christmas Carol' as a title for his story about the reformation of the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, publishers Marcus Ward & Co. Ltd., extracted Mr Wardle's song from its context within the setting of the Dingley Dell celebrations and issued it as a slim book in its own right, with illustrations by the Irish painter, Frank Bindley.

Here it is: one Dickens' rare poems, but significant in that it was written in celebration of that time of the year of which the author was such a passionate advocate...

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCROOGE UPDATE

I am still catching up with my favourite versions of A Christmas Carol: most recently re-watching the 1984 version starring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge.

It is, unquestionably, the most faithful film version of Dickens' novella – so much so that whenever it (albeit rarely) deviates from the original text it takes the viewer startlingly by surprise!

Shot on location in Shrewsbury (which serves as a passable double for 1800s London), the film has an outstanding supporting cast with David Warner and Susannah York as Bob and Mrs. Cractchit, Frank Finley as Marley's Ghost, Angela Pleasance as the Spirit of Christmas Past, Edward Woodward as Christmas Present and nice cameos from, among others, Timothy Bateson, Michael Gough, Peter Woodthorpe and Liz Smith. The direction is by Clive Doner who, over thirty years earlier, had edited the 1951 film, Scrooge, starring Alastiar Sim.

As for George C. Scott's Scrooge, here is a very different incarnation to that famously given us by Sim and many others: this is no unkempt, scruffily-dressed, penny-pinching miser, but a "hard and sharp as flint", cold and calculating, business man; smartly-attired and with a caustic wit. With a sardonic line in throw-away "humbugs", Scott provides a masterclass for all would-be Scrooges-to-Come!

Grabbed 25-minutes to enjoy Mickey's Christmas Carol from the previous year to the Scott version: story-wise it's pared to the bone but it has charm, much humour and, in Alan Young's vocal performance as Scrooge McDuck, the first seasonal skinflint to combine Scrooge's Dickens-originated characteristics with those of the comic stereotype of a mean Scotsman.

And it remains a reminder of just how good it was, back in 1984, to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and others back on screen after many years of retirement!

With a similar running-time is Richard Williams' 1971, Oscar-winning animated film with its stunning design of a Victorian-engraving-come-to-life.

The film crams every second with a richly-condensed essence of the original story (including details frequently omitted from versions with a running-time four times the length) and it is crowded with stunning animation set-pieces of which the-most-terrifying-ever Marley's Ghost and a shape-shifting Spirit of Christmas Past are but two.

Vocal reprises from the 1951 Scrooge give us Alastair Sim and Michael Hordern as Scrooge & Marley and Michael Redgrave is an authoritative Narrator to steer us through this picture-perfect, Dickensian roller-coaster.

Finally (for now) a newcomer: this year's The Man Who Invented Christmas.

 
Based on the book of the same name by Les Standiford, this is a highly fictionalised biopic set in the run-up to Christmas 1843 with Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) desperately searching for a story to write in order to keep family and home together and fend off mounting debts.

The characters of Scrooge and Marley along with well-known lines (such as "dead as a door-nail" and "if they be like to die let them do it and decrease the surplus population") all present themselves to the beleaguered Dickens in his daily life and from these encounters and overhearings he eventually crafts the little book we know so well.

The moments of historic accuracy a far outweighed by the wild flights of fancy, but with Christopher Plummer as Scrooge, Jonathan Pryce as Dickens' father and pop-up performances from Donald Sumpter, Simon Callow, Miles Jupp and Miriam Margolyes to keep the punch bowl bubbling, it is a highly enjoyable watch.

Whilst The Man Who Invented Christmas plays, perhaps inevitably, to that age old lie (so needed by those of us who lack the imaginative spark of creativity) that all classics must have sprung from some real-life occurrence rather than from the pure invention of genius, it manages – as does just about every film that owes something to Dickens' "Ghost story of Christmas" – to capture enough of the spirit of the book to be satisfactorily heartwarming on a cold, dark, winter's night!

MORE SCROOGERY!

The last couple of weeks have passed in a kind of nightmare while attempting to meet a constantly changing book deadline, so have had the time to do much in the way of Dickens-Caroling...

However, I did manage to shoe-horn in a viewing of Alastair Sim's Scrooge (1951), still many people's out-and-out favorite version, and it's really not difficult to see why: the usually affable Sim gives a consummate performance as the curmudgeonly humbug and is then deliriously infectious in the scenes of reformation and transformation. His chuckles and whoops of joy are a delight all the more sweet for following on from his earlier barking and growling.

And, yesterday, The Muppet Christmas Carol: cinematic joy of joys! Nothing truly needs to be said about this film, other than if you've never seen it, then –– "See it!" And if you have seen it, then –– "See it again!"

SCROOGE IN ANIMAL-LAND

There have been many dozen (doubtless several hundred) illustrated editions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol produced during the 175 years of its celebrated literary life; this Christmas comes a brilliant new interpretation by the remarkable Spanish illustrator, Angel Dominguez.

Dominguez – who is a true 21st century inheritor of the illustrative traditions of past-graphic-masters Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac – has already given us fresh and vibrant interpretations of such classics as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There and The Wind in the Willows along with a clutch of original story-and-picture-books.

Now, he turns his brilliantly perceptive pen and brush to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol...

And when I say 'brush', that is, in fact, an appropriate choice of word, since Dominguez has taken the characters in this famous "ghost story of Christmas" and transported them into an animal-realm interpretation of Victorian London, with that mean humbug, Ebenezer Scrooge Esq., cunningly translated into a sly old fox! 

As can be seen in this illustration of Scrooge – prior to his succession of ghostly encounters – scowling over his ledger, while awaiting his "melancholy dinner" in the crowded London tavern, Dominguez stuffs his illustrations with an intensity of detail and evocative atmosphere. 

A sharp observer of nature, the characters boldly – and with complete success – combine the animalistic and the anthropomorphic and the result is pure delight!

There have been, God love us, more illustrated versions of A Christmas Carol than you've had hot turkey dinners! 

For starters, there was the original 1843 illustrator, John Leech, followed by, among many others, the aforementioned Arthur Rackham, Ronald Searle, Quentin Blake, Michael Foreman, Ian Miller, Robert Ingpen and Christian Birmingham. So there's no more a shortage of pictorial interpretations of Mr. Scrooge, Marley's Ghost, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim than there is of movie incarnations; but Dominguez's approach is so completely unique (it can be safely avowed that no artist has ever previously depicted the Spirit of Christmas Present as an orangutan!) that the story takes on new flesh –– or, perhaps, I should say, new fur and feathers!

 

Needless to say, since Scrooge is a fox, the little poor-but-proud Cratchit tribe are  endearingly redrawn as a family of mice, ready to scamper in equality beside the creations of Beatrix Potter.

It is a testament to the brilliance of Dickens' genius that his novella took England by storm within the first months of publication and pretty much conquered the entire western world within scarcely more than a decade.

It is also the hallmark of a classic such as this, that the story can carry such myriad impositions and interpretations without losing any of its power or weakening any of its essential truths.

In this new edition, Angel Dominguez gives a original, unexpected, perspective on the tale and, in so doing, has created a timeless classic that remains fully Dickens and yet also made it completely his own.

 

"THE END OF IT"

I, as you all must know by now, love (correction – am obsessed by) Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Each of the story's five 'Staves' has its wonderful evocative scenes – the haunting of Jacob Marley, the bittersweet memories of Christmas Past, the glorious peregrinations of Christmas Present (especially the Cratchit family's humble Christmas dinner) and the terrifying shadows of Christmas Future, but I am particularly fond of the last section in which Scrooge the miser is 'born again'. Dickens called this section – the denouement of his fable – "The End of It".

Here is that conclusion as presented on stage in 2003 by The Lansbury Players in my  adaptation. You will hear Richard Holliss as Ebenezer Scrooge; Cody Barthram as the Boy on Christmas Morning and John Wain as the Poulterer; Chris Holliss and Di Barber as the Charity Collectors; Noel O'Callaghan as Nephew Fred and Joyce Gambles as his wife, Rose; Keith Cummings as Bob Cratchit and Yours Truly as Mr Charles Dickens with the ensemble cast. The songs and original music were by Nick Clark and the production directed by Dave Millard.

So here it is –– the blissful transition from despair to hope of which the true spirit of Christmas speaks to us still...

A DICKENS OF A TALE!

"On", as Mr Dickens puts it, "of all the good days in the year – Christmas Eve": here is the story of how the world's best-loved Christmas book came to be written and what happened to it afterwards...

HUMBUG! was first broadcast 1993, this is a revised & extended version of a programme originally broadcast in 1987. Told by me (in those far off days when I was still a BBC voice) it features Norman Bird, Diana Olson and more Scrooges and Marleys than you can rattle a chain at!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE!

YOUNG AT HEART

Farewell to Alan Young (1919-2016) that engaging actor whose many roles on stage, film and television include Wilbur Post, the klutzy owner of a loquacious Palomino horse in one of the wackiest of the goofy '60s TV sitcoms Mister Ed (1961-66) and, later, the voice of Disney's Scrooge McDuck in Mickey's Christmas Carol and numerous TV animations.

Anyone thesp who can share the screen with a talking horse without being totally upstaged and can speak like a stingy Scottish duck is, surely, an actor with genuine talent!