Directed by Christopher Gable and choreographed by Massimo Moricone, Northern Ballet’s A Christmas Carol was a hit when it premiered in 1992, but has been presented only sporadically since then. Now it’s back, 11 years after its last outing, though this time without a live orchestra (the company’s Sinfonia has been cut). Does it still work, four decades on?
Well yes – but allow me a quick Scrooge moment, if you will. A Christmas Carol is a snow-globe, Victoriana vision of a world reassuringly sealed from our present and our future; that is why it works, and perhaps why we need it now.
Moving on: it is also rather magical, if occasionally a bit padded-out, and beautifully staged, with Lez Brotherston’s versatile, two-level set transforming seamlessly from street to garret to graveyard to tavern. Costumes too are also Brotherston’s; there is much hat and cape, much bonnet and breeches and bewhiskering.
It’s a ballet, but also a bit musical – the dancers sometimes sing carols, the themes of which wind through Carl Davis’s score – and a bit panto: Bruno Serraclara and Amber Lewis perform hammily and skilfully as comedy couple the Fezziwigs, their partnerwork always off, whether subtly or blatantly. Another out-of-kilter duet for young Scrooge (George Liang) and his first love Belle (Dominique Larose) forms the bittersweet heart of the story, their balletic harmonies undone by dissonances of action, alignment and direction; and we understand the hurt that has hardened Scrooge’s soul.
As Scrooge, Jonathan Hanks has a ball, a misery-guts to start with, then progressively fearful, finally a sprightly old goat, cutting quite the caper. There’s brio elsewhere too (Kevin Poeung has a standout turn) but for my money the piece works best – as ballet often does – when it’s spooky. There are splendid swarms of ghoulish phantoms in tattered shrouds, fingers artificially elongated and limbs skewed to odd angles enabled by years of ballet training. Shame, though, that after the more or less benign ghosts of Christmases Past and Present, the baleful figure of Christmas Yet to Come, a skeletal angel with moth-eaten wings, doesn’t get to do much more than point, portentously.
But that sounds miserly, and we can’t end like that. No, take the kids (pre-teens), enjoy the feast, and your time in the snow-globe.
• Touring to Hull, Norwich, Nottingham and Leeds until 4 January
