A Christmas Carol (Old Vic Theatre) London Reviews and Tickets

Item: A Christmas Carol (Old Vic Theatre)
Rating: 83
Author: Paul James

83%

(1 Review)

Positive

100%

Mixed

Negative

Members say

Great staging

About the Show

Dickens' classic Christmas tale about Scrooge and the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future.

The Old Vic presents a production of Dickens' well-loved story during the festive season.

When miserly Scrooge is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, he realises that he's lost sight of what really matters in life.

A new stage adaptation by Jack Thorne ('Harry Potter and the Cursed Child') with direction by Matthew Warchus. This production is recommended for ages 8+.

Member Reviews (1)

Great staging

See it if You like bells

Don't see it if You want something innovative

Critic Reviews (10)

For a previous production

Jack Thorne’s version of the familiar tale is richly textured and shamelessly emotive, full of song and heart. This year’s staging feels shorter and more hard-hitting than the 2017 original and 2018 reprise.
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For a previous production

It's a very 21st century take on the classic … it oddly has the effect of making Dickens more sentimental and more moralising than he is. It also seems to strip some of his anger out of the tale, rendering it more ... easily palatable.
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For a previous production

It begins and ends well. Yet there’s a Dickens-sized hole in the middle. Using multiple narrators from the cast is a distraction. There are some delightful touches, though.
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For a previous production

Warchus enveloped a bustling production within the embrace of an audience held rapt at every turn. Composer and arranger Christopher Nightingale (a current Tony Award nominee for his score for this show) merits the highest praise.
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For a previous production

Matthew Warchus’ production seems ... to want to have its Christmas cake and eat it. Many of the lines hit even harder now than they did in 2017, with Dickens’ ideas about society, and how it cares for its poor and vulnerable, ringing out like a bell.
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For a previous production

Matthew Warchus’s magnificent staging provides everything you might want from a theatrical adaptation of Dickens’s timeless morality tale.
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For a previous production

Warchus's mix of Dickensian moralising and theatrical enchantment still soothes the most crochety of souls. The importance of living a good life … may be reinforced at every turn, but frankly that's no bad thing at all.
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For a previous production

Maybe it's the after effects of the pandemic and everything we've all been through, but I don't recall any iteration of this beloved, yet still hard-hitting, story being quite this moving.
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