Jack Lord is the meanest of Scrooges. Too parsimonious even to expend energy on movement, he crosses the stage with glacial economy. It is as if he has audited his muscles and rationed their use. Standing at his ledger, he turns the pages with stingy restraint. For him to talk to Bob Cratchit (Adam Bassett) in his employee’s own language would take a level of generosity he does not possess.
For Cratchit, the modest hero of the Charles Dickens favourite, is a British Sign Language user – a man doubly wronged by a boss who has not only left him impoverished, but also excluded him from conversation. It is not that Scrooge cannot sign; his night-time return to Christmas Past shows his younger self using BSL with his sister and his fiancee. Rather, it is a facility he hoards like his money; one that benefits no one.
The exclusion makes Cratchit seem all the more put-upon and all the more noble in his refusal to spread the misery. Most of us would share the anger of Emma Pendergast as his wife, another BSL user, furious on his behalf.
This is the innovation of the fourth iteration of a production that began in Hull’s year as UK City of Culture, transferred to Leeds Playhouse and now, with director Sameena Hussain picking up where Amy Leach left off, returning home every bit as satisfying. The blackness of the workhouse set by Hayley Grindle is offset by the nourishing choral work of John Biddle’s score, with a script by Deborah McAndrew that is sometimes playful but never less than earnest.
When, finally, a chastised Scrooge uses BSL to wish Cratchit a merry Christmas, it is emotionally and politically devastating.
