A CHRISTMAS CAROL

European Arts Company at the Cramphorn Theatre, Chelmsford

18.12.16

“Read by Mr Charles Dickens. The Author”. Well, we can only speculate on what those hugely popular readings were like, and how close Mr John O'Connor comes to the original. Personally I have always imagined a bold, melodramatic rendition, but this is largely a question of personal taste.

A single chair, the famous reading desk, put to many and varied uses, and some vaguely Victorian screens are the simple setting; unlike Dickens, director Peter Craze is able to call on sound, and to a lesser extent lighting, to conjure up Scrooge's world.

There have been cuts [Dickens sometimes took three hours to tell the tale] – the school room and Joe's rag-and-bone shop two of the casualties – but the key scenes are all in place: The Cratchits' festive meal and Fezziwig's dance both excellently brought to life.

An enjoyable reminder of the original behind so many adaptations and parodies. And, which would have delighted the Charitable Gentlemen, a performance that emulated the original in its charitable purpose, in this case raising funds for Dr Barnado's.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE

European Arts Company at the Civic Theatre

06.05.10

Frankenstein and Dracula live on in the popular imagination as spoofs, parodies and pantomimes. Character names and key moments survive, the rest changes at the whim of producer and performer.

Jonathan Kemp's playful retelling of Stevenson's story begins with the earliest stage version, by Richard Mansfield. It presents this as the crudest melodrama, and borrows that style for its own travesty, imagining Mansfield confronted by a “real” Jekyll.

The action uses the saloon bar of the Ten Bells, doubtless more at home in more intimate venues, and presses the furniture and properties into service to tell the story – the bottles behind the bar becoming the phials in Jekyll's lab, for instance.

A good notion, but we sometimes wished for a little more magic and a little less frantic manhandling. And was it necessary to adlib introductions each time ?

Entertaining performances from four hardworking actors: Arthur James as a snooty Poole, Richard Latham as the Actor Laddie, Jennifer Bryden as most of the women [not true, incidentally, that there are no women in the original - programme note], and William Hartley very watchable as the nerdy Jekyll and his swaggering alter ego, emerging like the Genie of the Lamp from the blue light and the smoke.

The reworked plot – potency potion, Whitechapel Murders, “Your tom cat is the Beast of Bloomsbury!” - tries anything for a laugh, though there is some authentic sounding dialogue, and, surprisingly, the darker, more philosophical drama re-surfaces effectively in Act Two.

A large part of the audience were students, making notes. I hope they were Theatre Studies – rich pickings in this hit and miss production – rather than English Literature, since what they saw had all the literary integrity of a Two Ronnies sketch …