IN the bottom right-hand corner of the programme cover for A Christmas Carol is a statement in silver (although it should really be in gold). It reads: 2017 Year Of Exceptional Drama, 2017 being Hull's year as the UK City of Culture.
Under artistic director Mark Babych's astute leadership, Hull Truck has had a Hull of a year in its contribution to the clatter of culture in Yorkshire's fish city, from Richard Bean's English Civil War farce The Hypocrite to Maxine Peake's The Last Testament Of Lillian Bilocca at the Guildhall, and now a new version of A Christmas Carol, set on Hull's docks. Excellence all round, and Babych's own production of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian had plenty of traction too.
Babych keeps on making good decisions, and here are two more. Firstly, Deborah McAndrew was commissioned to adapt Charles Dickens's winter tale of second chances – just like City of Culture has given Hull that transitional chance too – after her superlative work for Mikron Theatre, Northern Broadsides, Reveal Theatre and York Theatre Royal. More Dickens, Hard Times for Northern Broadsides, is already in her diary for next year.
Andrew Whitehead as Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol
Secondly, West Yorkshire Playhouse associate director Amy Leach, one of Yorkshire's most exciting directing talents, has been secured to steer Dickens's "perfect mixture of funny, magical and spooky", and she brings all the imagination, vitality and fresh ideas she displayed in her concrete-city and boxing-gym Romeo And Juliet in March in Leeds.
Inspired by the Victorian warehouses still to be found around the city, McAndrew's "uniquely Hull twist" to Dickens' tale has transformed Ebenezer Scrooge into the owner of one such large dockside building, enabling sea shanties to be woven into the play alongside Christmas carols and witty pastiches in John Biddle's score.
Hayley Grindle's set, with the brick frontage of the warehouse, the familiar paraphernalia of a dock quayside, and fish crates stacked up for Scrooge's desk, are complemented by Joshua Carr's lighting, which gives a golden glow to frosted windows and adds to the spookiness with a plethora of candles.
The Cratchit household in Hull Truck Theatre's A Christmas Carol
At this point it is pertinent to quote Mark Babych, who sees not only "glowing warmth, a magical atmosphere, and timeless characters" in Dickens' story, but also a resonance for modern-day Hull in its "comment on poverty, social deprivation, and the importance of giving people the opportunity to thrive".
Just as in The Last Testament Of Lillian Bilocca, when a triple trawler tragedy struck Hull's fishing community in 1968, so Hull is a divided city in A Christmas Carol, wealth for some, poverty for rather more. Between them, McAndrew and Leach do not labour this point, but it is there if you wish to seek it, alongside a magical, musical and beautifully told story for family audiences.
On the one hand, this is a "traditional" Victorian telling of A Christmas Carol, not least in Christopher Wright's performance as Scrooge, travelling from Gringe to grin on his road to redemption. On the other, Polly Lister's fairy-lit Ghost of Christmas Present is an effervescent cross between circus act and music-hall performer, corny Christmas gags and all. Unconventional certainly, but she is a big hit with the audience, just like this fantastic show in fact.
A Christmas Carol, Hull Truck Theatre, until January 6. Box office: 01482 323638 or at hulltruck.co.uk
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