A Shoddy Christmas Carol At Lichfield Garrick Review
DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW
Reviewed by Nigel Chester
Last night we had the immense pleasure of attending the Garrick Theatre at Lichfield. We have been fortunate enough to visit this great theatre on several occasions and have never been disappointed. We had e-tickets which were packed full of information, especially useful was the car parking information.
It takes effort to turn out on a dark December evening but we are glad that we did. It was a tonic to all the hype of Christmas that can feel so hollow.
The story of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is well known and much loved, first published in 1843 and interpreted in a Shoddy performance in 2025.
This we were told on a number of occasions wasn’t pantomime, the audience replied “Oh yes it is”
Shoddy Theatre Company first took shape in 2018, when the University of Essex, East 15 acting school undergraduates had to create an entire play on their own. The result was such a success that the ensemble was awarded a graduate grant and Shoddy Theatre burst on to many stages – How glad we are that it did.
University has been the launch pad for many a comic genius, I think it is quite possible that we might one day see the comedy trio of Aldcroft, Bartram and Donaldson in the same league as Fry and Laurie or Mitchell and Webb.
Our evening’s entertainment took place in the studio with the floor area being the stage and its intimate tiered seating having a capacity of 150. The set was sparse, a door, mirror, bookshelf and table plus a few seemingly insignificant items, a coat hook and coat stand. Believe me, not a thing was wasted over the course of the evening.
Everyone must know A Christmas Carol and have a favourite version, personally mine is the Muppets whilst my wife enjoys the 1970 Albert Finney version.
The story is very deep, it is reflective on so many levels and bears testimony to humanity, kindness and cruelty “are there no workhouses?” The very name Scrooge has come to mean a miser, but I believe it is deeper than this, Scrooge isn’t asking anyone to do anything he isn’t doing himself. He sits in the cold office with his bookkeeper; he doesn’t make merry himself so why should he pay for others to do so.
What unfolds over the course of the story is an understanding that giving and generosity can be joyful acts that make the giver happy as well as the recipient, such an important message.
How could a comic version do this tale justice? Well, it truly did.
The premise is that the actors for the night are stuck in traffic on a broken down coach on the M5, very believable so far, so the Director (Mitch Donaldson), Stage Manager (Jacob Aldcroft) and an understudy who made her own way there (Becky Bartram) would have to perform for us as cancellation was not an option, mainly because they needed the money! Even though I knew that this was the play, as a sub-plot I bought into it.
So, our production team threw themselves, quite literally into the telling of A Christmas Carol – a ghost story. Arthur the stage manager was terrified that he would meet a ghost and was jumpy all night and it definitely rubbed off on us. There were mishaps aplenty, if it could go wrong, it usually did, but it certainly wasn’t predictable. I couldn’t imagine for a moment how ignorance and want would be brought to life before us but it was, and the flying scene as Ebeneezer joined the ghost to visit his old school was something else again.
So why go and see Shoddy Theatre’s telling of this classic Christmas ghost story? Well, it’s laugh out loud tears in the eyes funny, it remains true to the story, the acting is so bad it’s purely brilliant. Think how good Les Dawson had to be on his piano to play that badly – well, that’s the Shoddy Company, slick and professional.
Do yourselves a favour, take a break from Christmas and go and see a performance that will stay with you.
I’m just looking for tickets to go again – hope to see you there.
Rating: 5/5
A Shoddy Christmas Carol runs until Sunday 4 January with tickets priced at £25.00 (subject to £3 transaction fee) and concessions available
For more information or to book tickets, visit https://www.lichfieldgarrick.com