A Christmas Carol
The National Theatre of Scotland - 2009-2012-2015
Five actors and seventeen puppets performed in this Vaudeville style show to re-envisage this classic tale by Charles Dickens inside a specially constructed accounting office.
The brief was to create a low tech and intimate ghost story that was both funny and true to the original story. The actor/puppeteers were fully visible in hot woollen period costume and the puppets varied greatly in style from Victorian parlour game prop to Jacob Marley’s rancid persona hanging in the ether. The ghost of Christmas Past descended from the ceiling, Christmas Present buffooned with the audience like a stand up comic while the Cratchet family huddled around their sad little table.
With a capacity of ninety five some of the audience felt a little too close as the puppets seemingly crawled out of the walls but by the end no-one was left unmoved.
The development of the project was spread over 2 or 3 years but the experiment of puppet and actor working alongside each other was a critical success for the National Theatre of Scotland and remains one of their most talked about shows.
The show received two CATS awards for Best Production and Best Ensemble.
Puppet Design and Coaching
THE GUARDIAN
"..when Gavin Glover's superlative puppets magically appear through the apparently solid walls of the set, they have such a fearsome, otherworldly demeanour"
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
"One of the classiest pieces of theatre to have been staged in Scotland"
★★★★★
Christmas FUTURE issues the final ultimatum
IGNORANCE taunts the audience
Party guest in the making
Belle and Young Scrooge string puppets
Young Scrooge string puppet
Written by
Charles Dickens
Adapted and directed by
Graham McLaren
Puppet design and coaching
Gavin Glover
Puppet costume
Toztli Godinez de Dios