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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
