A Christmas Carol BBC TV Version 2019

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Spoiler alerts This version, by the excellent Peaky Blinders team promised to be a darker, more Gothic take on the oft-told tale but actually it is quite a traditional telling other than in the two elements where it fails, namely its depictions of Marley and Tiny Tim. Guy Pearce is good in his Leslie Grantham’s Dirty Den portrayal of Scrooge, at his cruelest in the sexual humiliation of Mrs Cratchett as an experiment, and the ghost of Christmas Past & Future look great though the Ghost Of Christmas Present looked as if the actress was phoning her portrayal in. Marley! I always felt this character was under-used, even in the original novel/novella. We only see him as a ghost in repentant mode trying to save himself from damnation by saving Scrooge. Even in the past we never get to see much of the partnership, or to what extent each character corrupted the other. Marley the miser deserves a full on screen treatment. Here we see Marley in the Underworld, demanding to know why he still suffers despite having repented over and over, getting his chains and powerlessly watching the other ghosts getting ready to go and do their party tricks. Again, in the visit to the past, he is just a background character. Tim – The disabled sickly child who might have rickets, and could be treated / cured with more money or better nutrition. For some reason here he gets ice-skates just to set up the genuinely creepy drowning vision. (Sell the skates for food and medical treatment Bob!) We don’t get his famous closing line, ‘God bless us every one’ or his future career singing Tiptoe Through The Tulips. (kidding). Nor do we see Marley finally find out if he did enough to gain redemption or not. A postscript scene of him being unchained and set free to rest or go to Heaven would be called for. We just see Scrooge give Cratchett a decent redundancy payment and Mrs Cratchett unwilling to forgive him even then I can’t blame her but has she messed up the Marley-Scrooge redemption hopes in doing so? Arthur Chappell - wishing all a happy humbug day. Youtube - Tiny Tim - Tiptoe Through The Tulips -