A Christmas Carol, and Another, and Another...

What the Dickens?!?

Welcome back to I’m Not Complaining! If you enjoy whatever it is I’m doing here, there are three ways to support it:

• Press the little ‘heart’ button at the bottom to show you like the article. A little validation is nice.

• Share the article or all of “I’m Not Complaining” with your friends on social media.

• Become a subscriber - preferably a paid subscriber. For the price of a Venti Mocha Frappuccino once a month, you can be a Patron of the Arts (or at least a Patron of I’m Not Complaining).

Now, on with the ‘stack!

---

I don’t think I know anyone who doesn’t love Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, although I don’t know very many who have read it. If you haven’t, please do - I’m rereading it now. It’s short, and you can get an e-book version for free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19337.

A Christmas Carol has been adapted an astounding number of times in various formats: staged readings, staged performances, movies, television shows, cartoons and at least one great puppet show. There were two different stage versions in London in 1844, just months after the novella was published. I wasn’t there, but I understand they were well received.

Don’t worry - I’m not going to catalog every version; there’s Wikipedia if you want that. However, there are some adaptations that grab my attention, and you can spend the rest of the month enjoying many of them if that’s your idea of a good time:

Theatre

Roger Daltrey as Scrooge

Scrooge Rocks: Roger Daltrey played Scrooge in a musical version at Madison Square Garden in 1998, twenty-some-odd years after Keith Moon narrated the story for an LP (which I have never found).

Tradition: If you live on or near Long Island, NY, Theatre Three in Port Jefferson has been doing a production of A Christmas Carol every year since 1983 (not counting the COVID era). They must be good at it by now.

Film and Television - Is There a Best One?

There have been 21 live-action movie adaptations in English and 11 animated versions. That’s not counting the classic George C. Scott version, which was made for television in 1984. In addition to Scott (sporting an amazing set of muttonchops), that adaptation, described as "the definitive version of a beloved literary classic,” also features a creepily wonderful performance by Edward Woodward, and David Warner as Bob Cratchit - think of it - David Warner as a good guy.

Edward Woodward (beard) and George C. Scott (muttonchops)

For most of my life, the 1951 version, starring Alastair Sim, was considered definitive. I never liked it; as a boy I found it over-the-top and scary. Oh well.

For my money, modernizations like Bill Murray’s Scrooged don’t count. So I won’t count them.

Television versions seem to win out over theatrical movies when it comes to A Christmas Carol. Patrick Stewart’s version was also made for TV, and his one-man stage show is available on video as well.

The BBC produced a good one in 1977 (it’s on BritBox), with Michael Hordern as Scrooge. If you’re a fan of British television, you’ll recognize much of the cast.

Radio and Online

In 1938, Orson Welles and the Campbell Playhouse performed an audio version of A Christmas Carol. Lionel Barrymore was scheduled to play Scrooge, but he was ill and Welles played the part. They did it again a year later with Barrymore, but oddly, the Welles version is considered superior. You can download it here: https://archive.org/details/AChristmasCarol_20141223. The sound quality is pretty good.

In 2021, the Campbell Playhouse script was used for A Dark Shadows Christmas Carol, “broadcast” on Zoom and featuring members of the original cast of Dark Shadows. Jonathan Frid was not part of that production; he passed away in 2012. I do wish he would have come back from the dead to play one of the ghosts.

My Favorite?

I love the George C. Scott version, but I must confess that my all-time favorite version is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

Quincy Magoo’s finest performance

I can’t say it’s the best script, the best acting, or even great animation, but I love it. I’d like to suggest the Christmas Carol Cognition Theory: the first version of A Christmas Carol one sees becomes definitive. Therefore, a cartoon I first saw in 1962, when I was eight years old, is A Christmas Carol to me. I think you’d enjoy it too - fun songs, Jack Cassidy as Bob Cratchit. It’s also pretty easy to find.

Come to think of it, Magoo was, in fact, my second experience of A Christmas Carol. The first was a year earlier, and if you were a New York area kid in 1961, you might remember Sandy Becker’s puppet production, starring Geeba Geeba as Scrooge! Becker was the wildest of the kid show hosts on WNEW Channel 5, and the only reason I can’t list this as my favorite is that I haven’t seen it since then.

There you have it. If you have a favorite version I haven’t mentioned, please let us know in the comments.

And if you know someone who would appreciate this post, feel free to share it with them!