When the nation sat down to watch the first instalment of BBC One’s dark new A Christmas Carol adaptation last night, there was one character most Dickens fans would have been (mostly) unacquainted with: Mary Cratchit, wife to the clerk of crotchety miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Guy Pearce).
“In the book she barely exists,” says Sherlock and Doctor Who star Vinette Robinson, who plays the previously unnamed character in the author’s Yuletide classic.
In Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight’s bold three-part retelling, Cratchit is given new life and a haunting storyline of her own.
“You know I’m not sure you spelt your cousin’s name correctly, Mary. Is it Levitt with two ts or one?” her husband Bob (Joe Alwyn) asks suspiciously, after she offers to post their son’s yearly thank you letter to her cousin Jack, thanking him for the money that saved his life.
In tonight’s episode, the Cratchits’ storyline takes a darker turn. Were Bob’s suspicions founded? To what length is Mary willing go to protect their poorly son?
Viewers this evening should expect some disturbing scenes, “but that’s the point,” Bradford-born Robinson, 38, tells me over lunch near her home in Willesden Green.
Knight’s expletive-ridden, postwatershed adaptation has been called “terrifying” and “horrifically dark”, but “Dickens wrote in gloomy times,” she insists.
“When stories like A Christmas Carol become so familiar, they can become quite twee, so I think Knight’s just stoked the fire a little bit.”
Knight’s “Freudian take” is fitting in 2019, she continues. “It seems very prescient with everything that’s going on: I sometimes wonder if collectively kindness is dissipating or isn’t as present at the moment, so I think [this adaptation] speaks to that… In these divisive times, a story of connection and community and charity and love for your fellow man is really important.”
There are other modern elements.
Call The Midwife’s Charlotte Riley joins Robinson in the female line-up as the Ghost of Christmas Present and Scrooge’s sister. “It’s really beautiful how [Knight’s] done that,” she says, cheerfully.
“There aren’t really any women in the original, so I think it’s a really clever device because it amplifies that character and that relationship. [Knight’s] still stayed true to the story: the script just gives a slightly different angle on what’s already there.”
Robinson was excited to “sink [her] teeth” into a new character and enjoyed Nick Murphy's “raw” directing style: “he didn’t want period Dickensian drama acting”, she explains, and family scenes with Alwyn and the children felt “instinctive”.
“The kids loved being on set and had such a sense of play. Lenny Rush [who played Tiny Tim] is adorable: he’s played him for the last few years at The Old Vic, so he’s a Tiny Tim expert.”
Filming took place over 10 weeks between May and July and the heatwave added extra challenges — winter costumes, unfrozen ponds, noisy snow machines. “It did look magical — but it was bizarre,” says Robinson, recalling the snowy opening scene in the middle of summer at a church in Hampstead when curious locals took a look. “Ricky Gervais came down for a nosey; Liam Gallagher popped by…”
What about Alwyn’s off-screen girlfriend, Taylor Swift?
“I can’t say we discussed her,” Robinson moves on quickly (the pair have remained famously tight-lipped about their romance). She describes Alwyn as “lovely and easy to work with” and calls Pearce “brilliant”. Robinson’s other recent project, American-French film Frankie by director Ira Sachs, comes out in March but before then she’s looking forward to some family time up north over Christmas. Will they sit down to watch A Christmas Carol? “Yes, but I’m never very good at watching with them — I’ll probably keep offering to make cups of tea,” she says.
They’ll have to wait until the children are in bed, though, Robinson insists. “Normally there are seven-year-olds who watch A Christmas Carol, but I’m like ‘No, not this version,’” she laughs. “I have to keep telling everyone: it’s not for kids.”
Episodes 2 and 3 of A Christmas Carol on BBC One tonight and tomorrow, 9pm.
