A Christmas Carol (The Old Vic) London Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (63)
See it if You enjoy Christmas as it gets you in the mood for the festive season
Don't see it if You do not enjoy musicals
See it if you want to get Christmassy. This show is staggeringly good. The music and singing really sweep you away but the whole spectacle I loved.
Don't see it if Christmas ain't your bag.
See it if you like Dickens and a moving piece of festive cheer. I'm not usually a Christmassy person, but I loved it.
Don't see it if you don't like A Christmas Carol or Christmas in general.
See it if you’d love the story of A Christmas Carol told in a creative way.
Don't see it if you’re sick of A Christmas Carol.
See it if You live theatre and entertainment and Christmas and a great spirit
Don't see it if You don’t like absorbing, sometimes immersive theatre.
See it if Loved that it was in the round and included audience. Great staging, costuming, acting and music.
Don't see it if Can’t think of owt!
See it if Great performance and you will be part of the show
Don't see it if There are not reasons no to see it
See it if you want a Christmas delight
Don't see it if you're boring
Critic Reviews (28)
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.
Read more
"This show’s familiarity aside, the cupboard for five-star Scrooges is now looking a touch bare."
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
"It is all ... both magical and evocative of the celebratory season. It is also one of those productions where everything ... comes together to create an absorbing and assured telling of a story that has arguably become over-familiar."
Read more
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.
Read more
"As the auditorium erupts in the final sequence into song, dance, snow, and merriment, one’s joy is tempered only by the prospect of its absence. That duality sends playgoers tearfully into the night, their empathy reinforced just as Scrooge himself is spiritually restored."
Read more
“I've seen all the various Scrooges...including a memorable Covid-era turn from Andrew Lincoln performed within an empty theatre. But Eccleston brings a near-maniacal intensity to the part that is quite something to experience. You might think you know all the notes that exist to be sounded in arguably the most extraordinary exercise in character-conversion ever.”
Read more