Bah Humbug!

Posted on 6th January 2024

Just when you thought it was safe to put away the tinsel and the baubles, Simon Callow pops up with a version of Charles Dickens’s classic, ghostly tale to remind us that the spirit of Christmas can, and should, stretch well beyond Twelve Night.

Although Tom Cairns’s movie is based on a stage adaptation, its far more than a filmed stage performance. Neither is it a re-enactment of one of Dickens’s famed readings. Instead, Cairns uses the intimacy of the camera to create an absorbing retelling of a story so familiar that it’s remarkable how fresh and engaging this version is. Dickens, as narrator, was never more present than in A Christmas Carol, something that Simon Callow capitalises on, drawing the viewer in as if this is a freshly minted secret that he and you are sharing. Throughout, Callow is unusually restrained, letting the text do all the work as he deftly avoids lapsing into caricature. Filmed in what appears to be a deserted warehouse, he instead relies on the light and shade of different rooms to bring a variety of tones to proceedings in a way that feels inventive rather than contrived.  This is not to say Callow entirely dispenses with characterisation, and obviously relishes his presentation of a whole host of ancillary characters, not least the ghosts of Christmas, the spirit of which occasionally consumes him with eerie verisimilitude. 

This production’s bold reimagining reminds us that Dickens held up a mirror to the social conditions of his time, something that familiarity with the plot might lead us to forget. I wonder if that is Callow and Cairn’s abiding mission. To point to the robes of today’s Christmas Present, behind which the twin evils of Want and Ignorance are still lurking.