HAVING a Kylie moment. Can’t get it out of my head. And it’s a searing vision of Nicola Sturgeon, sitting up in bed wearing a faded cotton goonie, a Wee Willie Winkie hat, while holding a tiny flickering candle in one hand and a copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement in the other.
That Dickensian vision could just as easily feature Boris Johnson, bumbling around in a barely lit room, carrying a cracked chamber pot, his cold bare blue-white feet anxious not to step on the skelf-ridden floorboards of public recrimination.
Why the mid-19th century imagery? Well, both are creatures undergoing what seems to be acute periods of redemption. The politicians both stood up this week and finally came clean. Just as Ebenezer Scrooge once declared that even “external heat and cold had little influence on him,” it seems the FM now appreciates that heat and cold extremes can actually wreck the planet; she has finally accepted Greta into her life.
In the Prime Minister’s case, his coming to see the light has emerged in the form of the mea culpa, “I crashed the car into a ditch,” referring to his defence of the sleazy indefensible.
Now, whether there is political chicanery at work here or not, the redemption signalling has at least one positive; they point us in the direction of the greatest restitution story ever told. And A Christmas Carol is an experience we simply have to wallow in each year.
Thanks to Dundee Rep’s Artistic Director Andrew Panton, we can recharge with the energy of thoughtfulness, care and compassion. His reimagined musical version of the Dickens wonder story – written by Noisemaker’s Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie and with Isaac Savage as Musical Director, is brought to life by the Rep’s Ensemble and guest actors. Andrew Panton also works closely in the production with Scottish Dance Theatre’s Artistic Director Joan Clevillé.
And has there ever been a better time to take in a show that reminds us we need to step outside of our own mindset? Marley argues to Scrooge for example, that that “humankind” should have been his “business” and warns Scrooge that if he does not improve, he too will be “doomed”. Isn’t Marley’s ghost really an Alok Sharma, the Cop 26 organiser of the Dickensian era?
And when Dickens comes to describe Scrooge as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” could he not have (allegedly) been talking about the anachronism that is Stanley Johnson?
A Christmas Carol offers audiences a real sense of hope, creating the impression that Scrooge’s redemption is convincing and comprehensive and most likely permanent, thanks to his emerging laugh being a “splendid...most illustrious laugh.” Now, as we know, politicians’ promises tend to last about as long as printer ink.
But the rest of us can wallow at least in possibility that we can all do better. That’s why this show is not simply fun and magical, it’s an imperative.
A Christmas Carol World Premiere, November 27 – December 31.
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