Back for 2018: A Christmas Carol, Old Vic Theatre review ★★★★★

After a superlative, sellout premiere in 2017, Jack Thorne's adaptation of A Christmas Carol returns for 2018. Casting is still to be confirmed, but fingers crossed Rhys Ifans will reprise the role of Scrooge.

Booking for A Christmas Carol opens on Monday 9 April.

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From the moment you enter the Old Vic for A Christmas Carol there's enough festivity to blast away all the ^bah Humbugs. Cheery-faced carol-singers hand out hot mince pies beneath a constellation of twinkling lanterns, as the in-the-round production invites audience members into a Gothic yet gleeful Dickensian winter.

Jack Thorne, the playwright with the magic touch, re-works A Christmas Carol for an absorbing and atmospheric new show. The oft-adapted novel feels shorter and snappier, without losing the distinctly Victorian exhuberance of Charles Dickens' prose. Director Matthew Warchus maintains a fine balance between comedy and morality, evoking such an iresistible atmosphere that even those (like us) who know the story far too well will be newly entranced.

Artfully-harmonized carols punctuate the story, as a chorus of narrators in top hats and tails introduce the cantankerous Scrooge and his dead business partner, Jacob Marley.

Melissa Allan (Little Fan) and Rhys Ifans (Ebenezer Scrooge) in A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic

Stage and screen star Rhys Ifans (The Boat That Rocked, Notting Hill and Under Milk Wood) is a delight as everyone's favourite miser. There's an impish, ungainly energy to his Ebenezer Scrooge. With a shock of unkempt blond hair and a thread-bare frock coat, he lurks in the the counting house and prowls the stage, haunted by ghosts of Christmasses past, present and future.

Ifans brings a pettiness and petulance the the old crank, spitting out every single plosive with spiteful shower of saliva (beware, those on the front row). It's an eccentric portrait of cold-heartedness, that garners plenty of laughs without undermining Scrooge's emotional scars.

After the ghostly decadence of the first-half, Scrooge's redemption is brought to life with a pantomime frenzy. The entire auditorium is engulfed in the excitement as he gathers a feast to share with the Cratchits. It's immersive, silly and totally infectious. But, a bewildered and tentative return to reality in the final moments reminds us that even Christmas miracles require patience, hard work and determination.

It's a fitting message, and one that is likely to leave even 21st century Scrooges with a tear in the eye. Take the family to remind them that Christmas cheer and goodwill go far deeper than the John Lewis advert.

Recommended for ages 11+