Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol, Southbank Centre review ★★★★★

Despite the fact London is overrun by productions of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale, it’s rare to see A Christmas Carol set outside Dickensian times, let alone the UK, but that’s before the great mover and shaker Dolly Parton got behind the reins. Reimagining the story in an Appalachian mining town in East Tennessee, this production (with a book by David H Bell, and music and lyrics by Parton herself) brings lashings of southern charm and original, high-spirited country music to the story – helped along by Scott Davis’s appropriately rickety wooden set.


Corey Wickens and Robert Bathurst 'Scrooge' in Dolly Parton's Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol. Photo: Manuel Harlan

While in director Alison Pollard’s production, the ghosts don’t quite capture the fear-factor needed to make us worry about Scrooge’s fate, it wins us over with terrific central performances from Sarah O’Connor as Fanny, Vicki Lee Taylor as Mrs Cratchit and Corey Wickens, who channels the Ghost of Christmas Future through her violin.