A Christmas Carol

"If they had rather die, they better do it, and decrease the surplus population!"

~ Ebenezer Scrooge

In the latter half of 2020, I received the opportunity to portray the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge in my school's production of the Dickens' classic: A Christmas Carol.

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic at the time, the nature of the performance changed drastically from what we had initially set out to do. Originally, A Christmas Carol  was to be performed live over the course of 7 days, allowing a limited audience to come and watch each time. However, as the performance date drew ever closer, it became apparent that this was not to be, and so we switched to our back-up plan - which was to record the show as a video production instead. But, just like The Macbeths  before it, intervention from above prevented us from being able to proceed with this plan. As a last resort, we transformed the entire production into its final form: an audio play.

Being my first ever audio production, I was concerned of my vocal acting ability, but through frequent conversations with the director, we began to come up with a vocal style through which my interpretation of Scrooge could be played, and ultimately I am very pleased with my final performance. This was further helped by having already blocked out and staged many of the scenes through our prior rehearsals - I feel this gave my fellow cast members and I the edge we needed in terms of understanding the context of each individual scene.

A Christmas Carol  was recorded in the school's drama studio without audio or sound effects, which were added in post production. The score of the original production was flawlessly recreated by an ex-pupil of the school, with the carols sung by members of the Sixth Form Choir.