A Christmas Carol

The Tobacco Factory is a sparse, Spartan of a theatre. Around the central open stage the seating is an eclectic mix of benches, old school plastic seats and anything else which can be dragooned into service. It's situated in the "up-and-coming fashionable by default because the houses are still almost affordable by a young professional couple" area of Southville and is converted, as the name suggests, from a Wills cigarette and tobacco works & warehouse. The theatre itself is up two flights of echoing stairs, and is not in the least prepossessing. There are odd narrow cast-iron columns supporting the roof and upper storeys which are liable to get in the way of the audiences' view.

However, in the eight or ten years tha it's been going, we've not been to bad production there. The Shakespeare plays which they put on there, are reputed to be about the best in the country, and I wouldn't dispute that from the evidence which Moonface and I have seen.

Last Friday we all four went to the current production, "A Christmas Carol", adapted from the story by Dickens. Yes, it was excellent. I can't fault the acting or the production, allowing for the preferred simplistic sets which they choose - mainly an old-fashioned bed and a series of boxes plus a lectern-desk and sets of ledgers. There were some neat touches to place the action in the here if not the now: mentions of Bristol locations and history, plus references to the current financial crisis. With little in the way of scenery to distract from the storyline, the moral message came through clearly, enjoy the now, show kindness, put people before profit. It was a very redemptive play, and we left feeling sobered by the realisation of the poverty in which ordinary people like us used to live, but buoyed up by Scrooge's change of heart. After that, who can say, "Bah Humbug!"?


:o)