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During the Christmas period, sometimes theatre options in Dublin (that are not pantomime) can be slim. So, the Gate Theatre’s annual Christmas showing is highly anticipated by Christmas revellers and frequent theatre-goers alike. Usually an adaptation of a well-regarded piece of literature, since Selina Cartmell’s takeover as Creative Director in 2017 the shows have ran a little more abstract, like 2017’s Red Shoes. This year’s offering is A Christmas Carol, a new version of the ageless Dickens classic by Jack Thorne. 

In performing such a fabulously well-known tale, it gives the performers scope to adapt the moral tale into a modern production. The proscenium stage of the Gate has been removed, with instead a T-shaped stage cutting across the middle of the ornate room; the audience’s seats are scuttled around. The stage is covered in candles (perhaps a more effective symbol would be reducing the candles to one?), evoking the hardships of the Victorian age. The play opens with hymns by the chorus, dinging bells in time to create the syncopated rhythm. 

The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future are remarkably played by Fionnula Flanagan, Camille O’Sullivan and Kate Gilmore. O’Sullivan is punk-rock, wearing a delicious monochrome suit, while Flanagan is ghoulish in her dead-bride ensemble pushing a Victorian pram. Costume designer Katie Davenport will surely win awards for her creations; the mise-en-scene evoked festive Victorian London well. The play verges on pantomime at times, incorporating the audience through songs and props. This only serves to add to the festive mood; the audience is enjoying themselves as much as the cast seem to be. 

But it is Owen Roe as Ebeneezer Scrooge who is most striking on this stage. He performs in almost every scene with remarkable vigour, first as the stooped, cantankerous and mean tax-collector, and lastly as the energetic, open and generous family-man trying to make up for decades of niggardly penny-pinching. 

Overall, A Christmas Carol is a heart-warming and heart-wrenching tale suitable for all the family. Go if you love theatre; go if you love social inclusion; go if you love Christmas.