Charles Dickens – Live Art Alive

A Christmas Carol

Adapted by Deborah McAndrew

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A warm, witty, and wonderfully human A Christmas Carol seasoned with some Yorkshire grit.

Leeds Playhouse once again unwraps its annual festive treat, and this year’s A Christmas Carol is a glowing, golden bauble of a production. Set in Victorian Yorkshire wool mill, it’s traditional enough to satisfy the purists, yet peppered with just enough invention to keep the tale feeling spry, spirited, and surprisingly fresh.

From the moment the ensemble spills onto the stage, singing carols with crisp winter harmonies, there’s an infectious sense of festive togetherness. The production leans into the story’s communal heart: figures materialise from the shadows to become narrators, townsfolk, ghosts, and even Scrooge’s own conscience, creating a fluid world where past, present and future overlap like swirling snowflakes.

At the centre of it all is Reece Dinsdale as a sharply etched, quietly devastating Ebenezer Scrooge. The performance is refreshingly understated; rather than a cartoon miser, we’re given a man worn down by choices, loss, and habit. This gives the eventual thawing of that famously icy heart real emotional heft and makes his giddy transition into festive joy all the more delightful.

The Ghosts are a particular triumph. Bea Clancy as The Past arrives with a gentle, moonlit glow, weaving memory and melancholy together with a dancer’s grace. Claudia Kariuki bursts in with boisterous charm, a living embodiment of abundance and goodwill, sweeping the audience into laughter with every generous gesture. Their performance is a real scene stealer and when surrounded by the human dancing baubles, this is a real highpoint in this production that evokes part big Hollywood musical, part grand burlesque production. And the wraithlike Ghost of Christmas Future is evoked with spare, elegant, and utterly silent drama that is visually haunting and remains chilling in its simplicity, a reminder that even the most festive tale has its shadows.

Claudia Kariuki as The Ghost of Christmas Present. Image credit: Helen Murray

The Cratchit family, The Fezziwigs and Scrooge’s nephew, Fred are all the embodiment of good nature and strength in adversity. Their scenes perfectly highlight everything that Scrooge has loss in his quest for financial success. The deaf actors in the Cratchit family are highly effective giving some beautiful moments such as Nadia Nadarajah giving a silent but deadly takedown of Scrooge while Stephen Collins brings a gentle warmth to every scene as Bob.

Visually, this production is a feast. The set design by Hayley Grindle conjures Victorian Leeds with warm lamplight, crisp silhouettes, and a set that expands and contracts like the folds of a storybook. Costumes shimmer with earthy, Dickensian texture, while clever lighting shifts the tone from cosy hearthside scenes to eerie graveyard gloom in an instant. Music plays a starring role with brass band music in the background and live accompaniment on stage threading through the piece, giving it the feel of a carol concert wrapped in theatrical magic.

If there’s the occasional moment where the pacing softens or a sentimental beat lingers a little too long, it’s easily forgiven in a production that so wholeheartedly embraces the season’s spirit. This isn’t a radical reinvention, nor does it try to be. Instead, it’s a lovingly crafted, community-minded Christmas retelling that understands exactly why audiences return to Dickens year after year. Director Amy Leach knows the Playhouse audience well from her tenure as Associate Artistic Director and as always is a deft hand at creating work that is incredibly inclusive which never veers into tokenism.

Warm, witty, and full of heart, Leeds Playhouse’s A Christmas Carol is a festive hug in theatrical form. A show that sends you back out into the night believing, just a little bit more, in kindness, generosity, and second chances.

LEEDS PLAYHOUSE 20th Nov ’25 – 17th Jan ’26

OLIVER!

Large Theatres, Musical

Books, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart

Adapted from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist

Directed by James Brining

Leeds Playhouse

Christmas is certainly the time for nostalgia and sitting back rewatching old movies and indulging in familiar traditions such as Pantomime or a juicy epic from Charles Dickens. Leeds Playhouse have opted for the later and have thrown all the festive bells and whistles at this gloriously indulgent production. The classic Lionel Bart musical adaptation Oliver! has been a crowd pleaser for over 70 years. Director James Brining has taken his personal childhood memory of starring as a hungry urchin boy in a school production and lovingly celebrates this theatrical gem with a diverse and highly talented cast.

Set and costume Designer Colin Richmond has made brilliant use of the main stage in The Quarry by staging in the round with a range of elaborate platforms and bridges which allows for maximum drama and loads of very naturalistic movement on stage. The costumes are lovingly detailed and evoke every echelon of society that Dickens describes. London street markets come alive with the hustle and bustle of traders, shoppers and pickpockets. The grim workhouse filled with pallid hungry children desperate for gruel but dreaming of Food, Glorious Food is powerfully contrasted by the laden tables of food carried to gluttonous Victorian besuited men who frequent the same hallowed private clubs still entered by Tory politicians today who seem equally unconcerned by today’s food banks. Scenes in the funeral parlour where Oliver is sold as a tiny coffin follower are gleefully macabre as gloomy coffins open in the floor or a white faced child emerges from another to a sea of black clad mourners with quirky steam punk dark glasses. The overhead bridges and walkways work very well in allowing a large cast to move around on stage with freedom and give great scope to the clever choreography of Lucy Hind.

Felix Holt and cast in Oliver! at Leeds Playhouse. Image credit: Alastair Muir

Oliver! at Leeds Playhouse.
Image credit: Alastair Muir

Fagin’s base is filled with colourful pocket squares and eccentric bric a brac that allude more to the Victorian eccentricity of a born entrepreneur than the darker antisemitism of the original Fagin in Dickens. Steve Furst as Fagin is wily and has a certain Bohemian seedy charm but is also reminiscent of Wilfred Brambell in Steptoe and Son. The real brute is of course Bill Sykes played with real thuggish menace by Chris Bennett who is genuinely scary on stage. The feisty performance of vocal powerhouse Jenny Fitzpatrick makes for a striking and moving contrast as her Nancy feels robust enough to have no time for the thuggery of her lover. When she sings As Long As He Needs Me it is incredibly emotive as the complexity nature of love in a violent and coercive relationship is perfectly evoked. There are some great performances from all the main cast with a standout comedic turn from Minal Patel and Rosie Edie as the ghastly Bumbles.

The children in the Young Company are consummate professionals throughout this lengthy and demanding production. The young Oliver and The Artful Dodger are played by a rotating cast of young actors befitting modern child labour legislation. The press night production had Nicholas Teixeira playing Oliver and his clear diction and strong, pitch perfect renditions of Where Is Love? and Who Will Buy? were very impressive. Felix Holt was perfectly cast as the impudent but charming Artful Dodger.

This is a lush, exuberant extravaganza of a production that is memorable for all the right reasons. Every aspect feels well thought out and lovingly attended to. It’s truly encouraging to see large scale theatre productions in the North West that are worthy of coaxing London theatre goers to come North and hopefully remind Arts Council England that money allocated outside of London is a sound investment. If nothing else it might help keep Northern theatres from potentially resorting to pick a pocket or two to survive!!

OLIVER! at Leeds Playhouse 24th Nov 2023 – 27th Jan 2024

Great Expectations

Large Theatres

Adapted by Tanika Gupta

Directed by Pooja Ghai

ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens has been a crowd pleasing classic since first published in 1860. It has inspired numerous films, television and stage adaptations. Here Tanika Gupta takes this coming of age story and places it in 1899 in Bengal where rumours swirl of the British Empire’s intention to implement partition. A version of this adaptation was first staged in 2011 with English Touring Theatre and Watford Palace Theatre but perhaps it is even more relevant now with the rhetoric of politicians such as Suella Braverman and Priti Patel. Director Pooja Ghai sees this classic tale as ‘a rags to riches to rags story’ and Tanika Gupta uses the narrative to explore themes of religion and caste, race and colonialism. The outcome of this artistic collaboration is a success with the narrative staying true to Dickens and the new elements, for the most part blending in effectively.

The staging design by Rosa Maggiora is simply gorgeous. All ombre hues and intricately carved wood and metalwork, it flows as effortlessly as the glistening aquamarine of the surrounding river; a constant reminder of the impact of the looming Partition. The division between the world Pipli inhabits versus that of Miss Havisham and Estella is deftly delineated by the high carved gates. This is vividly accentuated by Lighting Designer Joshua Carr who paints the hopes and possibilities of having great expectations with a warm golden light whereas the home of Miss Havisham is dimmed and dulled as it reflects the chill and joylessness of all hope and love being long gone. With each moment the stilled, cobwebbed clock descends there is a sense of decay and wasted expectations.

Although certain characters’ names are altered to South Asian ones, they remain true to Dickens’ original vision. Pipli wears his heart and hopes firmly on his sleeve as he strives for what he perceives as a better life and naively entrust his heart and fortune to Estella and Miss Havisham. Esh Alladi does a good job with the younger Pipli but really hits his stride as Pipli grows up and experiences the brutality of heartbreak and the difficulties of straddling two worlds of class and culture in a rapidly changing world. Some of his later scenes are genuinely riveting and incredibly emotive.

Overall this is a strong cast with Andrew French creating a memorable take on the convict Malik. There is an added richness in how his beleaguered history has created a man still capable of love and generosity whereas the heartbroken but privileged Miss Havisham is cold and embittered and seems only capable of revenge with no redemptive qualities. Catherine Russell is a riveting onstage presence eliciting all Miss Havisham’s ghastly prejudice and disdain but flitting into moments of laudanum induced reminiscences that show the coy, innocent girl that was snuffed out on the morning of her wedding day. Cecilia Appiah as Estella captures the cold, haughty girl who is trapped knowing how she must be in order to keep her rank and privilege and discarding her joy and her capacity to love in the process. Some of the lighter moments come from a deftly comic and endearing performance by Giles Cooper as Herbert who befriends Pipli and steers him through the pitfalls of his new life and remains a constant despite the wavering fortunes of his great expectations.

Ceilia Appiah as Estella in Great Expectations at Royal Exchange Theatre
Image credit: Ellie Kurttz

Running at 3 hours including an interval, Director Pooja Ghai keeps the action flowing and the energy high. There are issues such as the running around the stage that feel unnecessary and not the most imaginative use of this wonderful theatre space yet the fight scenes are fresh, visceral and well crafted. Towards the end the political speech may feel essential to drive home the narrative but feel slightly rushed and does not work as well as it could, followed by a comedic touch which spoils the pitching of both. Overall there is much to love and appreciate in this production. It feels like a genuine celebration of placing talent old and new above race, religion or class. Perhaps it is even more special taking place in a theatre repurposed from a commodities exchange that built its success on colonial systems.

Great Expectations 8th Sept – 2nd Oct 2023