A Christmas Carol [Northern Ballet] – Review – Sheffield Lyceum

By Clare Jenkins, November 2024

It may be rather early for mulled wine, plum pudding, roast goose and cranberry sauce, but Northern Ballet’s A Christmas Carol is so festively absorbing, it’s a shock not to find Santa and Rudolph trotting outside the theatre as we leave.

Christopher Gable’s balletic retelling of Dickens’s classic was premiered over 30 years ago but, like the novel itself, remains timeless, its messages of kindness, human fellowship and redemption as relevant as ever. And with Carl Davis’s score incorporating carols, Massimo Morricone’s choreography and Lez Brotherston’s wonderfully atmospheric sets, it’s very much part of the company’s heritage. It just remains a continuing pity that, due to financial cuts, the music is recorded rather than played by the always-excellent Northern Ballet Sinfonia.

“Full of good cheer”

The Dickensian scene is set from the start, ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ contrasting with the sight of Marley’s coffin being lowered unceremoniously into its grave. Elsewhere, snowflakes are falling onto a London street crowded with shoppers full of good cheer, their costumes (frilly bonnets, waistcoats and plum-coloured velvet aplenty) contrasting with the misty murk. Scowling his way through them is the bewhiskered Ebenezer Scrooge (Jonathan Hanks, honing his inner Frankenstein), making his miserly, miserable way home for his bowl of gruel. And, he soon discovers, for four unwelcome visitors.

Brotherston’s multi-level set offers grimy sash windows large enough to let in ghosts (notably Saeka Shirai as a fetchingly floaty Ghost of Christmas Past), tattered curtains wafting eerily, staircases opening up to transform into Scrooge’s counting house or Bob Cratchit’s humble home. Outside: sooty quays and smoke-greyed wharves, St Paul’s Cathedral haunting the background.

“Sinuous phantoms”

The combination of ballet, mime, occasional voiceover and masked theatre creates some vivid storytelling from all concerned, including children from Sheffield’s Cox Dance Academy. Jacob Marley resembles a character from Japanese Noh theatre, there’s more than a touch of the Mexican Day of the Dead about the sepulchrally sinuous phantoms who visit Scrooge during the night, and Andrew Tomlinson’s Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is spine-chillingly spooky. By contrast, Harry Skoupas’s Ghost of Christmas Present is magnificently earthy, his bare-chested exuberance cloaked in holly green and berry red.

Harris Beattie as an initially shivering Bob Cratchit is an excellent foil to the lugubrious Scrooge, playfully capering at the prospect of a day off with his family. And there’s a touching pas de deux between Young Scrooge (George Liang) and his fiancée Belle, danced with ethereal pathos by Dominique Larose.

“Spirit”

There are snowballs, icy slides… and more than a touch of Cockney knees-up, alongside some panto slapstick from the Fezziwigs (Bruno Serraclara and Amber Lewis), collapsing on top of each other during the dancing, her voluminous skirts flying. And Tiny Tim’s (Haiden Atkins-Brennan) solo rendition of ‘How Far is it to Bethlehem?’ manages to stay this side of over-sentimentality.

By the end, Scrooge (who’s been pretty much of an observer so far) is jigging around the stage, trying to pull his trousers on, in order to join the Party of Plenty celebrations he’s always sneered at. Hanks effortlessly makes the transition from grump to generosity of spirit. Ding Dong Merrily indeed.

‘A Christmas Carol’ is at Sheffield Lyceum until Saturday, when it transfers to Hull New Theatre (November 12-16), then Nottingham, before ending with a three-week Christmas run at Leeds Grand Theatre (December 17-January 4)