"If I Were King..." - Stave One

Well, maybe I wouldn't need to be king, but just in charge!

In charge of a short-form audio adaptation of "A Christmas Carol," that is.

My recent posts on the Bernard Miles and Frank Pettingell recordings and what I considered to be lapses in the storytelling got me to thinking which elements from the book need to be worked into the adaptation so that listeners get the best experience.

First thing is that I don't think we need any of the social commentary from the book. Whether things are better or worse these days, they're different from how they were in 1843.

But we want the thing to make sense plot-wise and stand a s a cohesive whole. So, if this was your first exposure to the story, you could follow it. So many short adaptations, I think, rely on our prior familiarity with the story to fill in the gaps.

So, let's go through the book a stave at a time and pick out the elements we must have, along with some optional ones if you have, say, 40-odd minutes vs. 20-odd, and what can be ditched.

For Stave One, I want the narrator to tell us that Marley was dead (to begin with) as a door-nail and maybe a bit more, such as Scrooge not having painted out Marley's name.

Then I want the introduction of Scrooge as a "tight-fisted hand at the grindstone" and all.

Ideally, I'd like the exchange between Scrooge and Bob Cratchit about the coal, because I like Scrooge's line at the end for Bob to "buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i..." I don't want anything left hanging!

Then you need Fred to come into Scrooge's office and get rebuffed. Their conversation can be edited down quite a bit, as long as you get some of the key dialogue. 

Then you need the portly gentlemen to come in collecting for charity. That conversation can be edited too, but you need the "surplus population" line from Scrooge because we need the Ghost of Christmas Present to throw it back at him later.

Left out of many adaptations is Scrooge chasing away the caroler who attempted to sing at the keyhole. We want this in here because the first lesson that Scrooge learns when he goes to the past is that he should have been nicer to the kid, as Scrooge himself would have liked more kindness shown to him when he was boy.

Before we leave the office, we need Scrooge to give a hard time about wanting the next day off (with the "poor excuse for picking a man's pocket..." line) and telling him to be early the next day. We want the echo at the end when Scrooge gets to the office before Bob, who was actually late.

We should then follow Scrooge through his melancholy dinner and have him see Marley's face in the knocker. Don't need a lot of the description that goes with that, but just the fact that he saw Marley's face.

We can then cut to Scrooge in his sitting room with his gruel and have Marley's ghost make its entrance. Maybe have the bells ring, maybe not. Such details are incidental, but add to the flavor.

Marley's ghost should talk a bit about its current predicament and warn Scrooge to change his ways and tell him to expect the three spirits. Again, plenty of editing can be done and the point can still be made.

Within the first stave there's a lot of colorful descriptions of various things such as the Lord Mayor's Christmas preparations and how dark it is when Scrooge is going home. I love to read the book and get emerged in the whole thing, but I don't need too much expository narration and would rather keep the story moving along.

These story points I mentioned should get in there, however. And I want the narration and dialogue to be as close as it can to the source material, using the most memorable lines, realizing, of course, that some minor changes need to be made.

Oh, and, yes, the title of this series is just an excuse to plug a good flick starring future audio Scrooges Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone!

Stave One. Marley's Ghost. (Part 3!)

Scrooge leaves his office and stops for dinner at a tavern before going home. We do often see him having dinner, but not always.

We always see Scrooge arriving at his home (which used to be Marley's) so that he can see Marley's face in the door knocker. Dickens specifically says that the knocker is large, but otherwise ordinary. Different versions take their liberties with the design, however.

Once inside, Scrooge goes up some wide, dark stairs. We don't often get a glimpse of the hearse that Scrooge sees, but when we do, it's an eerie effect!

Most versions do include all the bells in the old building ringing at once, but we don't usually see Marley's face appearing in the fancy fireplace. We always hear some chains being dragged, however.

The dragger of said chains is, of course, the ghost of Jacob Marley! He's transparent with a wrapper holding his chin in place. Pretty scary, although Scrooge tries to hide his fear with his quip about Marley being more gravy than grave. He's got some snappy one-liners!

As I understand it,  Marley's sartorial traits (pigtail, waistcoat, etc.) indicate that he might be a generation older than Scrooge, as they were out of fashion in 1843, even allowing for the seven years he had been dead. Perhaps neither here nor there, but interesting.

So, Marley goes on for a bit about how he has to wander the earth dragging his chains as penance for the life he lived and how he's arranged for some spirits to teach Scrooge the error of his ways.

One thing that's definitely played around with in various adaptations is when the ghosts are supposed to appear, but in the book, the first is to appear the next night at 1:00 am, the second the next night again at 1:00 am, then the third the next night at midnight. So, that's pretty stretched out!

Before he leaves, Marley shows Scrooge some phantoms outside of his window. This is sometimes included, sometimes not, but it's usually a striking image.

One thing of note (or not) is how Scrooge is dressed at this point, Dickens mentions that before Marley's ghost came in, Scrooge had taken "off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap." And after Marley's ghost leaves, Dickens says Scrooge "went straight to bed, without undressing." It's so common to see Scrooge wearing a nightshirt in his various incarnations, you'd almost think that was true to the source material!

OK, now that we've got that settled, we're ready for some ghostly interaction!

Stave One. Marley's Ghost. (Part 2!)

The next character to appear is Scrooge's nephew. He's also not called by name until later in the book. (Spoiler: It's Fred.) He's very cheerful and full of Christmas spirit, though poor in Scrooge's eyes. He's married and would like Scrooge to come to Christmas dinner and meet his wife. Scrooge is not pleased that Fred is married. Scrooge's famous "Bah! Humbug!" remark is directed at his nephew, who brushes it off and remains cheerful.

An interesting point is that Fred has apparently never met Cratchit before, although most adaptations have the two of them exchanging pleasantries as if they were already acquainted, with Fred asking how Bob's family was doing. Bob states later in the book that he had only met Scrooge's nephew that one time.

Scrooge's nephew isn't really in the book that much, but a lot of versions give him an expanded role, although sometimes he's omitted altogether!

The next two characters' names are never revealed and they are only described as portly! Kind of harsh! These are the two gentlemen who come into the office asking for donations to charity. Only one of them speaks in the book and this is often the case in various adaptations.

The gentlemen do not know whether Scrooge is Scrooge or Marley (that sign again!), but this gives Scrooge a chance to mention that Marley had died seven years ago on Christmas Eve.

The fact that they don't know who Scrooge is shows that Scrooge is not known by everybody in London, let alone that he's such a miser. These two find out pretty quickly, though!

This scene contains some of the snappiest dialogue in the book, with all the talk about prisons and workhouses and decreasing the surplus population and all. Those lines by Scrooge really illustrate his character and are almost always used.

After the gentlemen leave, Dickens goes on for a bit about people scurrying around and preparations for the Lord Mayor's Christmas dinner. Very descriptive, but it slows the narrative down, so most adaptations don't deal with it at all.

At this point, a young caroler sings outside the door, but Scrooge chases him off with a ruler. A commonly used incident, but often placed after Scrooge leaves his office.

Before he leaves, however, he engages in a bit of business with Cratchit about taking the whole day off for Christmas. I love Scrooge's line, "A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!"

A little bit of character development for Bob Cratchit is that he's so excited to be done with work and start celebrating the holiday that he goes down a slide with a bunch of boys twenty times! A good Cratchit to me is meek and mild at work, but fun and jolly at home. He loves his family and knows that he needs to keep his job to support them. Things haven't changed much,have they?

Bob goes home and Scrooge is about to go home himself. What will he find there?

Stave One. Marley's Ghost. (Part 1!)

For as long as I can remember, I've always read "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens at least once each holiday season. It's always interesting to be reminded of what's in the original text and what makes it into various adaptations. Equally interesting is what's not in the book but shows up in multiple adaptations!

Just in case it needs to be said... SPOILER ALERT!

The book opens with the statement that "Marley was dead to begin with." How dead was he? All together: dead as a door-nail! Just about every version uses that simile. Must be Scrooge law! Many versions use a narrator for this, other times it pops up in dialogue.

It's mentioned that Scrooge and Marley were partners were partners for many years and that Scrooge had not painted out Marley's name after he had died. We see the sign with both names fairly often.

Besides his less than desirable character traits (wrenching, covetous, etc.), Scrooge himself is given a physical description, which may or may not match up with his various depictions. Dickens says he has old features, a pointed nose, thin, blue lips and a frosty rime on his head, eyebrows and wiry chin. You don't see that "frosty rime" on the chin very often! Most versions show him as old, with longish white hair. Usually you can tell right away that it's Scrooge, as the typical "look" is well-known.  He's always portrayed as mean, often a bit eccentric. I think for him to really seem like miser rather than just a mean guy, he needs to be a bit eccentric.

We're also introduced to Scrooge's clerk. Everyone knows his name is Bob Cratchit, but we don't actually learn his name until Stave Three! Almost every adaptation, however, has Scrooge call him by name early on, often yelling his last name in the manner of Mr. Slate hollering, "Flintstone!"

Named or not, Bob would love to get his mitts on some additional coal for the fire, but Scrooge isn't buying it. In the book, Bob is pretty timid about the whole thing, but some versions have him arguing with Scrooge over the coal. I think that's out of character, as the implication is that Cratchit has been Scrooge's clerk for some time and Scrooge certainly wouldn't put up with an argumentative employee for very long! 

It's hard to say how old Bob is supposed to be. His age seems to vary a bit in various incarnations.

Next up: Another character whose name we learn much later...