One Christmas Carol Review

Photography: Yuchu Zhao

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There are a dozen ways to stage A Christmas Carol in December: lavish ensembles, swirling snow, celebrity Scrooges, jingling spectacle. One Christmas Carol goes in the opposite direction — and, in the intimate upstairs room of the Canal Cafe Theatre, that choice feels not like a compromise but a declaration. This is Dickens, stripped right back to story, language, and performance. And it’s thrilling.

Adapted for the stage by Douglas H. Baker, the production is performed by a single actor, Gwithian Evans, who conjures a whole Victorian world almost entirely through voice, physical precision, and sheer narrative propulsion. The skill involved in bringing over 30 different characters to life without losing clarity or momentum is phenomenal; you’re never confused about who is speaking, what the emotional temperature is, or where you are in Scrooge’s spiralling night journey.

What’s equally impressive is how specific Evans makes the storytelling. These aren’t broad sketches or easy caricatures. He snaps between personas in split seconds, but each one has its own rhythm, posture, and intention. Tiny changes - a tilt of the head, a tightening of the jaw, a softened breath - do huge work. It becomes a masterclass not only in character acting, but in the craft of holding an audience in the palm of your hand.

The staging is cleverly spare: a few chairs, and a mobile door that becomes a surprisingly potent motif - thresholds, invitations, exclusions, the boundary between the living world and the spirit one. The production leans into that symbolism without labouring it. Meanwhile, the sound and lighting add texture and pace, tightly choreographed to Evans’ movement and the story’s supernatural turns. The overall effect is bigger than the materials suggest: a full theatrical experience built from disciplined choices rather than decoration.

And then there’s the text. In a season where Dickens is often shortened, softened, or smoothed into festive wallpaper, it’s genuinely invigorating to hear the bite and music of the language again - the rhythms, the imagery, the moral ferocity. The directness plays beautifully: close enough to feel spoken to you, not performed at you.

This is, quite simply, an outstanding piece of festive theatre: intelligent, atmospheric, impeccably controlled, and unexpectedly moving. If you want a Carol that reminds you why the story endures - and what an actor, at the top of their game, can do with a bare stage - this is the one.

It's too late to see it this year (our review of One Christmas Carol was from the five nights that it was playing the Canal Cafe Theatre), but one to seek out next Christmas.

Writer: Douglas H. Baker

Director: Claire Evans

Performer:   Gwithian Evans

Lighting: Alistair Lindsay

Sound: Richard Carter

Producer Alistair Lindsay | Unusual Theatre