A Christmas Carol - Liverpool
Company: Spike Theatre & Drawlight Productions
Writer: Mark Smith & John Garfield-Roberts
Role: Director
Cast: Mark Keemar Smith & Lewis Bray
Writer: Mark Smith & John Garfield-Roberts
Role: Director
Cast: Mark Keemar Smith & Lewis Bray
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Reviews
The Reviews Hub
"It is refreshing to see something a little less celebrity filled and with plenty of original touches to bring something new to a well seasoned story... manages to pack plenty of pathos and humour to warm even the chilliest of hearts....Bray plays every character in the story bar the miser Scrooge, he excels himself in managing to flick quickly between characters...Smith plays the vindictive and spiteful Scrooge with aplomb...Garfield-Roberts balances the tender darker moments with the light hearted well... a little nugget of gold, in an intimate and perfectly fitting venue.'
Made Up Liverpool
'A two-man Christmas Carol might seem a bit of a gimmicky thing, especially when the famous film and musical versions rely on large casts to create the bustle of Dickensian London. But once Mark Smith and Lewis Bray get into action, the idea works remarkably well...Cramming the story into just an hour (which is easy enough to do when there’s only two of you), the company’s trademark combination of storytelling, puppetry, clowning and the odd bit of improvisation made for a hugely enjoyable show, sometimes funny, sometimes scary and sometimes strangely moving...Directed by John Garfield-Roberts, this production of A Christmas Carol is something of a trial run for what is likely to become a bigger show in future, and it was important not only as a warm and witty piece of seasonal entertainment, but as a reminder that professional theatre companies like Spike still have fight in them; a determination and drive to keep making art and taking it to people even in the face of near complete budget cuts. And that is something very special and very admirable indeed.'
Liverpool Sound and Vision
'If any theatre can do the impossible then trust Spike Theatre to not only to do the job well but to do it in such a manner that it will blow most other adaptations away! The Company take it away from the overblown and almost ugly grandiose affairs and bring it back to the intimate and stifling that accentuates the overpowering sense of the macabre that features so heavily in the novella...The space at the Lantern Theatre perfectly suits this type of theatre and conversely Spike Theatre suiting the Lantern Theatre. With the story condensed down to an hour, there is much onus on the two actors, the excellent Mark Smith and the enjoyable Lewis Bray, to show that A Christmas Carol can be produced with the barest amount of fuss and the two actors fashioned a show of quiet brilliance...A Christmas Carol is a special piece of theatre and when done as well as this particular production it justifies its status as one the U.K.’s favourite stories.'