A year ago I wrote this response to 'A Christmas Carol' - directed by Tim Carroll and performed by Dominic Gerrard. I loved it, and I'm delighted that this production has now returned for a full run at the Waterloo East Theatre, opening tonight!
You were a stranger to me
You were a stranger to me
in your sober coat and high, starched collar.
Scrooge too, scowling and slow, lifting his head
and taking his first breaths
was not the wooden puppet that I knew
but animate: a bitter, sneering man
I would not like to meet.
That little room of yours became a treasure box
of small surprises – music and laughter,
turkey and crackers. I saw the snow
and heard the soft, sweet music
of the violin, conjuring time and place,
the clanking of chains
and murmuring of ghosts.
You conjured up a distant evening,
snowfall on a quiet road,
and then (your favourite, I know)
a moonlit flight over a silver sea.
You carried fear and hope, frost-bitten fingers
and a crackling fireside
till we arrived, inexorably, at Christmas.
Dickens loved a feast, and you bowed out
with bowls of steaming punch
and plum pudding, music and laughter,
dancing and holly.
You left us warm with hope and charity,
blazing coals and candlelight,
redemption and revelry.
'A Christmas Carol' runs at the Waterloo East Theatre from 3 - 15 December
Dominic Gerrard performed brilliantly with his interpretation of A Christmas Carol at our Dickens Day For Great Ormond Street Hospital recently. The audiences were delighted and thrilled by his passionate and original portrayal, bringing his incredible Scrooge puppet vitally alive, expressing the story with great acting skill in fine Dickensian tradition; the applause was rapturous from all age groups. Don't miss this opportunity, go and see it at the Waterloo East Theatre.
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