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What's it all about?
You'll love Simon Callow in this unique, one-man adaptation of Charles Dickens' beloved tale of redemption, staged to coincide with the 200th aniversary of its author's birth.
After sell-out success at the Arts Theatre last Christmas, Callow’s A Christmas Carol is playing there again for a strictly limited run ending on 6 January. His intelligent, virtuosic performance breathes fresh air into the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, bringing all its characters to life movingly and with comic pizzazz.
Such is Callow's abiding passion for his craft and for Dickens that he barely gave himself time to draw breath before starting this short run; his other hit one-man Dickens show The Mystery Of Charles Dickens was booked up at the Playhouse Theatre until 10 November.
What's the story?
Dickens' A Christmas Carol is as integral a part of Chritmas as presents and plum pud. But for all that it's ultimately a happy tale of redemption, it doesn't flinch in its examination of the dark side of human nature.
Miserly businessman Ebeneezer Scrooge lives out his life in selfishness and alienation in Victorian London. His decent-but-downtrodden clerk Bob Cratchit's son Tiny Tim is desperately ill, but Scrooge won't even give Cratchit a day off for Christmas.
Taking to his bed as Yuletide approaches, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, who show him how his life will be if he fails to see the error of his ways. We all know how the story ends - but getting there is a pleasure like no other.
Who's in it?
One of the nation’s best loved actors, Simon Callow returns to Dickens once again after huge international success with adaptations of the author's Dr Marigold and Mr Chops, as well as one-man shows Being Shakespeare and The Mystery of Charles Dickens.
The latter was a hit in London and on Broadway in 2011, and has been reprised by Callow in London to further success in 2012, in a run ending just days before the start of this revival of A Christmas Carol.
Callow's list of stage credits is vast. Recent among them are the Chichester Festival Theatre's production of Peter Shaffer's Equus and the 2009 UK tour of Waiting for Godot, in which he starred as Pozzo opposite Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart and which culminated in an extended run at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
He is a prolific film actor, with Shakespeare In Love and Four Weddings and a Funeral among his best known efforts, as well as an acclaimed author and biographer of Orson Welles, Charles Laughton and Dickens.
Who is A Christmas Carol suitable for?
Anyone who wishes to see a master craftsman with a bone-deep love of his source material perform one of the best-loved stories in the English language in a gorgeously personal setting should book a ticket for this intimate show immediately.
Why Book With Us?
TheatrePeople.com is your online box office for A Christmas Carol tickets, and your one-stop theatre ticket shop for the best seats in the West End. Count on us to provide great service and great discount deals on theatre tickets for all of the plays, comedies and musicals on the London stage. We hope your trip to A Christmas Carol at the Arts Theatre is a memorable one, and we look forward to welcoming you to Theatreland.
Did You Know?
Simon Callow is so deeply involved with the life and legacy of Charles Dickens it's almost as though he's become his representative on Earth.
Not only has he played Dickens in two separate one-man theatre shows (one of which was written by Dickens biographer Peter Ackroyd), he's essayed the part of the great Victorian author in Dr Who and voice-acted both Dickens and Ebeneezer Scrooge in 2001's A Christmas Carol The Movie.
His multimedia Dickens barrage doesn't stop there. Not content with recording the definitive audiobook versions of a raft of Dickens' best-known works, Callow has himself written not just an acclaimed biography of Dickens that was published in 2012, but several other books on the author's life and legacy including, aptly enough, 'Dickens' Christmas'.
Callow's output as an actor / director / writer / musician is frighteningly prolific. Just like that of Dickens himself.
