Edward Kingham (left) and Joe Shefer in Piers Beckley's adaptation of A Christmas Carol
What the Dickens?
Piers Beckley on adapting A Christmas Carol for the stage
A well-loved story like A Christmas Carol carries a lot of baggage with it. Even if you haven't read it yourself, you've probably seen one of the films. And even without those you know the basics, as the word Scrooge entered the English language a long time ago. So adapting it for the stage wasn't something that I entered into lightly.
Every adaptation is really a translation of the original work into a different medium, so the first thing that I needed to do was to see the mould into which I had to pour the story.
The Lion and Unicorn is a small pub theatre with a tiny stage, a basic lighting rig, and one exit. Form follows function; so I'd write the piece flowingly, with no scene breaks, and few if any props. A change of location would be signified by a change in lighting; no sets for us.
Now that I had an idea of the tools available, time to get to work.
The first thing I did was read the story again, from beginning to end.
The second thing I did was read the story again, from beginning to end.
The third thing I did was read the story again, from beginning to end. But this time I was armed. I used a highlighter pen to mark up anything that I thought was interesting, or relevant to the story. Sometimes it was a line of dialogue, sometimes a description or a turn of phrase.
And then I did that again, too, trying to capture everything that I'd missed the first time.
I did this for two main reasons – to get the story in my head, so that I would know it in and out and back to front, and to pick out the things that I wanted to bring across into the new version.
I needed to know what the essential parts of the story were. What did I need to have in there to make sure I was still telling A Christmas Carol, and not another story based on it?
Armed with my working copy (now covered with scribbles and falling to pieces), it was time for the library in order to make sure I was adapting Dickens myself, and not just using half-remembered television productions or films. If I had to introduce or explain something, I had to make sure it was as true as I could make it.
So I read, and I bookmarked, and I researched the hell out of anything that I still didn't understand – what exactly is Mrs Cratchit sewing? How much would Bob Cratchit earn, and how much food could he buy for his family with that? How did pawnbrokers work, and what sort of people used them? And what is it that Tim dies of, exactly?
Although I knew that the basics of four ghostly visits and a redemption had to stay the same, there were some things that I wanted to update.
In the original book, Scrooge's old (and quite dead) partner Marley shows up on his doorstep. Scrooge then accompanies the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future on a tour of Christmas, and what it means.
But the thing is: Scrooge is already a changed man. At this point it's just a tour of the sights, because he's already made up his mind to be a better person. Splitting the ghosts into two nocturnal visits allows Scrooge to have a personal journey instead of a sudden revelation.
Theatre, like television and film, is a collaborative medium, and one of the joys of working in it is having other eyes and minds to help. Two weeks into rehearsal I had a telephone call from director Ray Shell. A scene wasn't working. I spent 20 minutes patiently explaining what I was trying to do, and why it needed to be set in the place it was, before realising that I was being an idiot and he was right.
An hour later, I'd rewritten the scene. And the play was improved immeasurably as a result.
When you're adapting something to another medium, there will and must be differences between what the original author wrote and what actually gets performed.
Adaptation is translation, and the words are never quite the same. But a good translator can retell the story in a new medium, in a way that engages, excites, and entertains.
That's what I tried to do. Only the audience could tell you whether or not it was a success.
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