"A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong" (2017) - Part Two

If you got the chance to watch the BBC presentation of "A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong," I hope you found it as amusing as I did.

Derek Jacobi before things go wrong!

I thought it was clever how it started off like a legitimate production with Sir Derek Jacobi as Scrooge, then went off the rails, sort of like a Spike Jones record. You could probably trick someone if they didn't know!

You may recall that we heard Derek Jacobi in an audio adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" a while back, but he was narrating as Charles Dickens rather than playing Scrooge.

The Dame tells the Sir how it is!

The narrator here is Dame Diana Rigg (still lovely at 80-ish), who within the context of the show is the aunt of one the cast members, Sandra (I think!), played by Charlie Russell.

It's a little confusing to me, as the actors are playing fictional actors in the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society and there's a series of these takeoffs. There's some backstage "drama" dealing with the actors' personal lives mixed in, but I was able to follow along pretty well!

The cast does a good job of playing the comedy straight, if you will. They act like they're sincere about trying to put on a good show and never seem like they're intentionally sabotaging it.

I was especially amused by Jonathan Sayer as Dennis who can't remember his lines as Bob Cratchit and has them written all over the set.

Good fun and a surprisingly faithful adaptation.

As I said before, worth a watch!