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.