A Christmas Carol
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

SINCE last Christmas, Britain has, if anything, slipped deeper into a modern version of Victorian economic and social deprivation and that's why the RSC is spot on in reviving David Edgar’s dramatisation of Dickens’s perennial favourite.

While Rachel Kavanaugh’s production gives full weight to the tale’s mix of exuberant jollity and tear-jerking sentimentality, Edgar’s use of its author as commentator — reminding us throughout that his narrative is based on reality and his own youthful experiences — provides an edge which never allows it to slip into pantomime.

Joseph Timms captures not only Dickens as social critic but as an actor-manager who prompts characters when necessary and who even stands in as a younger version of Scrooge before the avaricious rot sets in.

If Adan Gillet as the miser who has to be educated by his ghostly mentors doesn’t convey the sheer enjoyment of meanness in Phil Davis’s portrayal of Scrooge last year, he's perhaps a more credible skinflint who could be one of the ubiquitous Tory foot soldiers loquaciously on message in the media today.

Only the RSC or the National Theatre could mount such a bountiful production, marshalling the technical resources and a nearly 50-strong cast who clearly enjoy themselves as much as the audience and there are marvellous set pieces.

Fezziwig's effervescent Christmas party is offset by the Cratchits’ meagre repast heartbreakingly entertained by the tubercular Tiny Tim and there's a trio of suitably not overly wraithlike spirits. Catherine Jayes's appropriately atmospheric music and designer Stephen Brimson Lewis’s settings are an effective complement.

If there is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek feeling to Scrooge’s final conversion, this splendid show sends its audience home cheerfully hopeful that God may indeed “bless us all, everyone.”

Runs until January 20, box office rsc.org.uk