Director and designer of A Christmas Carol describe delights - and uncomfortable politics - in Dickens' classic

In the final article on this sell-out production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, Rachel Kavanaugh and Stephen Brimson Lewis talk about the show, which opens tonight (Wednesday) starring Ade Edmondson as Ebeneezer Scrooge, a stingy businessman who is visited by three ghosts who help him discover his compassionate heart.

Stephen Brimson Lewis – designer for A Christmas Carol in 2017 and 2018 - has enjoyed the luxury of having the main theatre exclusively for this show until January.

"It means I can push more, put in a few more tricks and I can play around with the machinery the RST has to offer to create some magical effects. It’s a great opportunity to have a show that’s a big hit - and you can improve it, make it more exciting and tell the story more clearly,” he said.

“Because of the way the stage is at Stratford, the audience is in the middle of it the action and it is quite challenging to do magic tricks - which A Christmas Carol requires - you've got to produce ghosts and magic, to spook people a bit.

“It’s a scary book that has thrills but it's got a very strong moral centre. My job is to provide some of the magic and excitement you would not expect to see in front of you. And as technology has moved on we’ve become more confident about how we use stage machinery and trickery.

"I was really lucky to work with a brilliant magician (Britain’s Got Talent finalist) Ben Hart. He's an amazing illusionist. I told him I've got to magically make Marley appear, I've got to have a flying carpet, I've got to have a candle that miraculously lights itself. And with the props, scenic and costumes departments, he helped me build those illusions.

“Giles Taylor (Marley) trained with them in how to deliver the illusions. There's lots I don't want to give away as the tricks are part of the unexpected. Marley’s appearance is very surprising. He appears out of the bed feet first. We provide a flying carpet on which Christmas Present and Scrooge rise above the stage and are taken on a journey across Christmassy London - the audience can see it from all sides.

“With Covid and people being off we’ve had to put in more understudies and make the cast bigger - even with the children. They play four or five parts each, and each has a different costume. We still have to tell the story and make it look like a Victorian world. The thrill for me is it’s like time travel, because Scrooge goes from 1843 back to being a boy in 1800 and gets a glimpse into his future.

"You rarely have the capacity to do that in theatre today and it’s one of the joys of working in a company at this scale – it’s very rare and a gift for a designer.

“We must hold onto the subsidised companies like the RSC. We have to protect those talents who can make a make a suit, a pair of shoes, a piece of armour, an extraordinary prop. We would be nothing without those skills of these brilliant people.”

Rachel Kavanaugh, director of all three RSC productions of A Christmas Carol said: “It’s the same design, the same script mostly, but obviously we try and improve it each time.

“It feels even more important to be telling the story this year than in 2017. The gap between rich and poor in our society has got bigger, there are more children in food poverty. There are extraordinary lines in the play about children losing self respect because they don't have much to eat. And you read today about teachers feeding children in their classes. It feels very important to be telling the story again this Christmas,” she said.

“Sge goes on an extraordinary journey. First, he learns to have pity for himself. Then he gets interested in other human beings - the Cratchits, Tiny Tim, his own blood family. Then he learns about people he doesn't know, at the extremes of destitution. And finally, he learns he needs to accept help as well and that's a story worth telling.

“Although it goes to very bleak places, the story also has amazing joy and hope in it and the possibility of redemption. So hopefully it feels quite jolly as well.

“Ade Edmondson is a total joy. He's a really good actor and great fun and, of course, has a brilliant instinct for comedy. But he isn't trying to make it lighter or doing things for laughs, he’s doing it absolutely seriously and properly. Obviously there are lovely funny things he found in the whole of the last movements of the show. It's full of jokes and joy. And it’s been really lovely to rediscover it with him.

"He saw it the first time we did it in 2017 because he was up here (at the RST) playing Malvolio. So he knew the production – he knew what he was getting into.

"It felt very important this time to cast children with disabilities to play Tim and to have adult actors with disabilities in the company. It’s been educational and inspiring. Because the story particularly affects a child with disabilities I didn't want someone faking that. To have that authenticity in the cast seems very important.

The support in a company like this is extraordinary. The different departments and the people who operate the show are incredibly skillful. A lot of them have done the show before and they're pleased it's coming back. They like doing a Christmas show.”

To see our first behind the scenes at the costumes department article on the show see here and with actors here.