 | Christmas Carol: a Fairy Tale (NHB Modern Plays) Things are going to be different. Very different... 1838, London. Jacob Marley is dead. And so is Ebenezer Scrooge... In this reinvention of the timeless classic, Ebenezer has died and his sister Fan has inherited his money-lending business. She rapidly becomes notorious as the most monstrous miser ever known, a legendary misanthrope, lonely, and despised by all who cross her path. This year, on Christmas Eve, Fan Scrooge will be haunted by three spirits. They want her to change. But will she? This stage adaptation of Charles Dickens's Christmas tale is by renowned author Piers Torday. Christmas Carol: A Fairy Tale first came to life in the Dickensian environment of the world's oldest-surviving music hall, Wilton's Music Hall, London, in December 2019. It will prove a festive gift for amateur theatre companies seeking an original, female-led version with lashings of goodwill to all men - and women. Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. (Bowker Author Biography) |
