IT can be confusing trying to keep up with all the productions of A Christmas Carol. You'll find one at Kirkgate, the Victorian street at York Castle Museum, courtesy of Nightshade Productions, but this is the other one running in York. The one by fellow York company Procter Goblins, who first brought you their show last Christmas.
Except that it's not the same show. Same Black Swan pub where Charles Dicks once stayed; same middle-aged, irascible but latently humanitarian Ebenezer Scrooge in the imposing Lee Gemmell; same accordion player in Ben Crosthwaite; same gift of Terry's Chocolate Orange slices to be shared among the audience; but plenty of differences too, from changes in the cast and director, to making use of a glowing fireplace as a more atmospheric setting for Scrooge's parlour.
The company of actors is now a company within a company, aside from Gemmell's Scrooge, whose Bah Humbug winter blues are too serious for him to join the Victorian travelling troupe's pun festival of Johnny Curd's Felix Cited; Rosie Smith's Ida Know; Becky Lennon's Leigh Vitout and cello-playing Jimmy Johnson's Earl E Bird. In turn, they share out all the principal Dickens characters between them, calling on a couple of audience members for occasional impromptu involvement too.
Kirsty Woolf, so busy on stage last year, has taken up the reins instead for her directorial debut and she guides an exuberant pub theatre show with boisterous and evocative music (not least The Pogues' Fairytale Of New York) to accompany a story that "sends the message that there is still love, warmth and togetherness in a world of increasing anxiety and isolation".
Procter Goblins pack everything into an hour's psychological drama full of broad, modern humour and disturbing spirits, even telling each other to crack on when the pace threatens to drop for even a few seconds. Curd, in particular, is in tremendous form, especially as the ghost of Jacob Marley, adjusting his jaw to break out of rigor mortis, and as the stammering, timid Bob Cratchit.
A Christmas Carol, Procter Goblins, Black Swan Inn, York, tonight, then December 11, 12, 14, 18 and 19, 7.30pm. Box office: 07772 523116 or at seetickets.com/tour/procter-goblins-presents-a-christmas-carol
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