Madam ‘Ebbie’ Scrooge has topped The Times Rich List for 7 years in a row, but her heart is far from being as full as her pockets. Joe Murphy’s charming staging of Gary Owen’s adaptation returns to Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre, brimming with Dickensian dramatics. This high-spirited production playfully reverses Scrooge’s gender while offering up a visual party bag of exuberant festive bustle.
Unafraid to stray from the original, Murphy’s production delivers a buoyant jaunt back to 1843 Cardiff, in which the protagonist’s subverted gender takes a backseat to the production’s sincere critique of the capitalist structures that underpin the struggles of the Victorian underclass. Hayley Grindle’s model village-esque set design, dusted with sugar-like snow, is aglow with festivity before Hannah McPake’s Madame Scrooge storms the stage. A playful twist on the panto dame and an astute nod to Gentleman Jack, the play teases out a tragic backstory of Scrooge’s childhood trauma at the mercy of the Victorian welfare state. While she glares menacingly out at the audience at the start, McPake warms Scrooge’s stony heart with liberal doses of physical comedy. Local references to Canton and Splott pepper the play text, imbuing the production with a contemporary edge without overreaching.
Actors revolve continuously around the stage, as if caught in a snow globe, morphing into dancers and musicians while trading the harp for accordion for saxophone in Lucy Rivers’ delightfully folksy score. Welsh language songs are woven throughout including the shimmering harmonies of the ethereal Ghost of Christmas Past, featuring standout musical performances from Catrin Mai Edwards and Emily Ivana Hawkins. Owen Alun’s explosive entrance onto the stage as a ginger, North Walian Ghost of Christmas Present also shines; wearing a gigantic tree costume and donning an electric guitar, the play veers towards panto romp in its second half as he prances merrily about the stage hurling handfuls of glitter. Such moments of glee are effectively arrested by the heavy-handed policeman played by Oliver Wood, a sinister figure of authority overtly representative of the systems of capitalist exploitation expressed in ‘The System That Made Me’. Tiny Tim, a child-sized puppet ventriloquised by actors on stage, is subjected to slightly kitsch episodes of forced labour, but ultimately dwarfed by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. A towering, clawed beast, expertly puppeted by a chameleonic Keiron Self, the menacing beast is always half in shadow under Andy Pike’s crimson lighting.
Despite McPake’s effervescent performance, it feels like Madame Scrooge is slightly cornered into her final moral transformation after she is confronted with the horrors of implicated spinsterhood. Presenting her with an ultimatum between work or marriage, the play hedges around a pivotal feminist sentiment yet ultimately falters in delivering a truly transgressive overhaul of Victorian gender norms. Indeed, if the play had ventured further from its historical context, Scrooge’s characterisation might have explored more radical androgyny or even embraced a queer imagining, offering a bolder reinterpretation of the tale.
Regardless, McPake solidly delivers an irresistibly charismatic performance. This visually stunning spectacle exudes fuzzy festive enchantment for all, and its infectious cheer is enough to melt the heart of any Scrooge.
A Christmas Carol is at the Sherman Theatre until the 4th Jan 2025.
Reviewed by Julia Bottoms
